


night daze 77

by conclusions (introductions)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Falling In Love, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Violence, Secrets, an attempt at mystery, johnny is a bartender and jaehyun is sexy what more could you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:08:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27411718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/introductions/pseuds/conclusions
Summary: To Johnny Seo, late-night bartender to the morally grey and probably-criminal, the concept of unclean hands is not a new one. He doesn't ask questions, and he tries to keep the peace.But when Jaehyun shows up with a shadow stuffed full of secrets and a smile that breaks Johnny’s heart, Johnny has to decide how long he's willing to go to avoid the truth.(or: johnny loves jaehyun before he really knows him.)
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 20
Kudos: 135
Collections: nct title fest 2020





	night daze 77

**Author's Note:**

> nobody: 
> 
> me, deleting this entire fic and starting over: fourth time's the charm guys 
> 
> \--- 
> 
> also on this episode of 'lucy writes fic': i write fic and realize that not only do i dislike reading, watching, or consuming _any_ sort of sci-fi media, but i dislike writing it as well. 
> 
> this is a disaster. i know. i would not be standing here if not for the help of several amazing people, including julia for beta-reading and the wonderful, accommodating, stunningly kind mod of this fest. i am so sorry. 
> 
> but. yes. most of this is just star wars cantina music but i did my best take what you will from it
> 
> #NTF264

The two moons that orbit the planet Eylo rise, but Port Ellis doesn’t sleep. The downpour is relentless, but rain has never discouraged its residents, who are used to the rainstorms that sweep over the surface of the planet every autumn. The water runs down in rivulets off the wings of the countless ships docked at the interstellar port in Smugglers Avenue, the neon signs from the many bars, mechanics and late-night noodle shops casting everything in blues, greens and reds. 

A figure in a dark jacket slips between buildings. One of the monorail buses glides past him, its headlights reflecting off metal against his chest. He is armed to the teeth. He is dangerous. He is tired. 

To Johnny Seo, late-night bartender at the Andromeda, he’s just another customer. One that doesn’t even register in Johnny’s mind as he shouts a greeting, hands full of empty purple Gemini vodka bottles and New Tokyo sake, the foil labels glittery gold. Even if it _wasn’t_ rush hour, Johnny wouldn’t take note of him—they get all sorts through the Andromeda: space pirates and freelance pilots, guns-for-hire, employees in shipping and salvage. Dangerous women in slinky dresses, smugglers of rare Old Earth art. The streets by the interstellar ports are filled with every kind of person—mechanics, soup-sellers and shoemakers, men peddling nav systems, people that get along and wave to each other. People that don’t. 

It doesn’t matter, really, what you are out there. Because in the Andromeda—in Johnny Seo’s bar—you leave it at the door. 

A lot of people like Johnny Seo. Some of them even love him. Most of them, at the very least, respect him—respect him and the fact that he can make just about any drink in the entire universe. The beer is cold, the music is good, and you’re allowed to stay if you make nice with your enemies. 

(Some people take it farther than others—people like Jaemin and Donghyuck, for example. Two hours ago, they’d tried to kill each other. Now, however, they’re attached by the mouth and entirely oblivious to the rest of the bar.) 

“Hey, babe, can I get a fresh beer?” Maeve from Protostar Shipping asks when Johnny passes her, still cradling the empty bottles. 

“Sure thing,” Johnny says. “Double Moon IPA?” 

“That’s the one,” she says, patting his arm. “You’re lovely.” 

Johnny dumps the empty bottles in a crate by the door to the kitchen, narrowly avoiding Doyoung, who comes swinging out with a tray of food. “Whoa, sorry,” Johnny says. “How’s it looking back there?” 

“Hisashi’s pissed,” Doyoung says. “He doesn’t like too many of one faction in at a time. Makes him nervous.” 

“Nah, I think it’s all right,” Johnny says. “It’s the Argonites. It’s Hendery’s birthday—they’re in a good mood.” 

“Yeah, but Donghyuck and Jaemin are both here,” Doyoung points out, “and neither of _their_ factions like the Argonites.” 

“I’ll take care of it if it becomes a problem,” Johnny assures him, which seems to put Doyoung at ease. _Everybody likes Johnny,_ Doyoung thinks. They’d hired him three years ago, and the atmosphere of the bar had gone from reluctantly peaceful to genuinely warm, if not welcoming. It’s a scary crowd, but everyone is smiling, and Johnny smiles back. 

The stranger takes a seat at the bar, next to a rowdy group of women. He needs a drink. 

So does everybody else in the entire bar, though, so it takes Johnny a second to get to him, wiping his hands off on the towel slung over his shoulder and pushing slightly-sweaty hair out of his eyes. 

“What can I get you?” he asks the stranger, who has yet to lower his hood. He’s dripping water everywhere, and Johnny looks out the window with surprise. It wasn’t raining when he started work—but that was almost six hours ago. It’s midnight now, and the lights of the port are hard to make out through the storm. “Whoa, what a storm,” he comments. “Do you want something warm? Firecider? A Big Red Spot?” 

“Whatever’s on tap is fine,” the stranger says, and Johnny hesitates at the sound of his voice—young, and quiet, holding none of the brassy bluster that the mob people use or the tired drag of the pilots. 

“We’ve got a lot on tap,” Johnny says, though he’s not sure how true that is anymore. The Argonites _are_ in a good mood, and the beer here is cheap. “Actually, let me check for you. It’s a busy night.” 

He ducks down and checks the tap levels. They’re running low on most of their beers, but there’s enough to fill up a glass. By the time the beer is in his hand and he’s answered a half-dozen questions about refills and the weather and his day job at the syntho-sell, the stranger has finally lowered his hood.

And _now_ , Johnny notices him. It would be hard not to, with a face like that. Johnny stops, beer in hand, and _looks_ —at his mouth, at his eyes, dark and long-lashed, at the way his hair falls over his forehead in waves. It feels sort of like he’s been hit in the gut.

“Here’s your beer,” Johnny says, setting it down in front of him. Jaehyun’s hands are attractive too, somehow, if that’s even possible. There’s a scar on one of his thumbs. 

Mustering all the courage he’s got, he asks, “What’s your name?” 

He takes a long sip of his beer before he answers. Johnny watches the strong line of his neck and jaw as he takes a moment, answering slowly. “Jaehyun. What’s yours?” 

Johnny taps the nametag on his black shirt. “Johnny. I haven’t seen you around before.” 

“Maybe you just missed me,” Jaehyun says, and Johnny can’t tell if he’s teasing or not. 

Johnny laughs. “No way.” _Not with a face like that._

The corner of Jaehyun’s mouth tugs up, two shallow dimples appearing in his cheeks. Johnny smiles back, and Jaehyun takes another sip of his beer. “What if I told you I’ve just been keeping my hood on the whole time?” 

“I’d say that sounds a lot like bullshit,” Johnny replies, teasing. “I know everybody in here.” 

“But not me, it seems like,” Jaehyun replies. He’s still smiling, but looking into his eyes is like the diamond ice that freezes over the eastern lakes in the wintertime—slick, beautiful, and impossible to break through. 

“Not you,” Johnny agrees, slightly off-put. Very rarely does he have trouble reading people. At least Jaehyun doesn’t seem hostile, though. “Stick around, though, and I will.” 

“I don’t doubt it,” Jaehyun says, glancing around the room. Johnny follows his gaze but doesn’t get the joke. But before he can ask, his name is called by Kiko, their third server-slash-bartender-slash-busser. Hisashi isn’t picky about what role they fill, as long as the place runs and people get their food and drink on time. 

“Be right back,” Johnny says, and Jaehyun raises his beer in acknowledgement. 

Kiko is holding her pink hair away from her neck and fanning herself with her other hand. The golden tattoos on her arms spin and drift lazily, but her expression is the opposite, tense and worried. 

“Johnny, Petir’s refusing to pay his tab again,” Kiko says. “He’s threatening to throw things.” 

Johnny sighs. “I asked him not to.” 

“I know, and I reminded him,” Kiko says. “But he—” 

They’re interrupted by a loud shout from around the corner, and Kiko winces. 

“Cover the bar,” Johnny says to her, and goes to see what’s happening. 

Petir, a large, blonde man with a penchant for Old Eastern whiskey, is standing in the center of the hallway with a chair in his hands, yelling at a terrified-looking boy with short hair. 

“You’ve got money!” Petir roars, shaking the chair. “I can _smell_ it on you! Give it here, or I’ll—” 

“Petir,” Johnny interrupts, and Petir goes stone-silent. “Hey. Kiko said there’s an issue with your tab?” 

Petir carefully sets the chair back down and turns, his anger flooding out of him so quickly he physically deflates. The short-haired kid’s expression has turned from fear to shock. “Hi, Johnny,” he says guiltily. “Um, no problem. Just misjudged the price of my drinks.” 

“That’s what I thought,” Johnny says, keeping his voice cheerful. The last time Petir threw furniture, they had to close a section of the bar to repair the walls. “You weren’t trying to shake this poor kid for bits, right? Because you know the rules here. And you also know how I feel about being an asshole.” 

Petir looks even guiltier. Johnny only feels a little bad for him, mostly because Petir’s a jerk and Johnny is tired of handing his ass to him. 

“How about this,” Johnny says, making up his mind. He walks over and claps Petir firmly on the shoulder, guiding him out of the hallway and into the main room. “How about you stop bullying kids, and I put your tab on the house for tonight?” 

Petir’s face lights up. “The house?” 

“Just for tonight,” Johnny says, pushing him towards the door. “And not ever again. And I mean _ever,_ Petir. You gotta find a new place to go.” 

Petir’s guilt—which was a facade, Johnny knew, because his anger is never far—drops immediately. “You—!” 

“You heard him, Petir,” says an Argonite from behind him, very drunk but also in possession of more than one pistol. A couple of women touch their odinesium swords, the type that shock the absolute hell out of you as you die. 

“Best if you just go now,” Johnny assures him, patting him on the shoulder. “I got your tab, though, really. You won’t have any bit drones after you.” 

Petir isn’t entirely mollified by that, but there’s a whole bar of people watching him, so he makes the wise decision to turn and head off into the night. 

“Fuckin’ cheap-ass drinks anyway,” Johnny hears him mutter. “Not even fuckin’ worth it.” 

“Thank you,” Kiko breathes when he comes to relieve her from bartending. “I always feel bad asking you, but he’s just—he’s so _massive,_ and I really don’t want to have a chair thrown at me.” 

“I got your back,” Johnny says. “And we only have an hour left until close, too, so look at that.” 

Sure enough, the bar has started to empty. It’s not perceptible yet—mostly because people are too drunk to notice the time and won’t leave until Johnny scoops them out of their seats and deposits them gently on the doorstep. 

He can feel Jaehyun’s eyes on his face as Kiko goes to clear a table and he works on finishing the martini she’d been in the process of assembling. 

“He’ll be back, you know,” Jaehyun says casually, sliding down a couple of seats so he’s within talking distance. “That man you threw out.” 

“I know,” Johnny says. “If I take the front exit and get on the bus right away, though, there shouldn’t be any issue. I’m not entirely helpless.” 

“I sorta assumed,” Jaehyun says, and Johnny feels his entire body go warm as Jaehyun’s eyes flick over his body. “Everyone in here—well, most of them—respects you a lot.” 

Johnny bites back an embarrassed cough. “Don’t say that.” 

“It’s true,” Jaehyun says, shrugging. “How long have you been working here?” 

“Three years,” Johnny says. “It was mostly by accident, too. Hisashi found me serving beer and chicken to people out of a stall. I don’t know what he saw, but he offered me a job that paid twice as well and I’ve been here ever since.” He raises a hand in farewell as a couple people head towards the door. “Thanks for coming! See you guys next Saturday!” 

“See ya, Johnny!” they chorus. Johnny turns back to Jaehyun, who’s got his chin in his hand. He’s incredibly attractive, every single part of him, and he’s _listening,_ which is uncommon. Most people stay just long enough to realize Johnny’s too busy to take home. The rest simply see him as another fixture of their favorite bar, like the out-of-date holo-screens in the corner or the wide array of good and surprisingly affordable tap beer. 

The only thing about Jaehyun that throws Johnny off is his eyes. Even the best liars can be given away by the look in their eyes, even if they’ve got their expressions under control. Jaehyun’s are so perfectly sealed-off that it distracts Johnny even more that the staggering attractiveness of his entire existence. 

“Where was I?” Johnny asks. 

“Hisashi?” Jaehyun replies. “Who’s he?” 

“The cook,” Johnny answers, and launches into stories about Kiko, who was hired after him, and Doyoung, who’s Hisashi’s nephew. 

“Hisashi had faction ties, I think, a while back. He wanted protection, because he’s a paranoid bastard, and what better way to assure that than loyalty from dangerous, drunken regulars?” Johnny says, and Jaehyun laughs, biting his smile back. He looks genuinely curious, and maybe and a bit amused. Flirty? It’s been _years_ since Johnny’s been flirted with like this, with the intensity of gaze, the way he leans across the bar. Johnny’s elbows ache from how he’s propped against the edge, but Jaehyun asks questions about the area, about the regulars, and Johnny talks about his life for what feels like the first time in forever. 

He gets so wrapped up in their conversation, midway through an anecdote about his mother, who lives with his father and younger sister in Johnny’s hometown of Westlock, a city on the opposite side of the planet, that he entirely loses track of time until Doyoung claps him on the back. He looks up and realizes the bar is nearly empty—Kiko is getting rid of the last customers. Jaehyun is the only one still sitting at the bar, his glass empty. 

“Guess that’s it,” Johnny says, straightening and blinking. “Wow, it’s one already?” 

Jaehyun stretches his arms over his head. “I should get going, then.” 

“Are you in town for long?” Johnny asks, grabbing Jaehyun’s glass and setting it on the belt back to the kitchen, where it’ll be washed by the servo. 

Jaehyun shrugs. “It depends.” 

“On?” 

“A lot of things.” Jaehyun slides off of the stool, one fluid motion. “My work, mostly.” 

“What do you do?” Johnny asks, realizing that he doesn’t actually know anything about Jaehyun. “Freelance?” 

“Sort of,” Jaehyun says. “I take whatever job pays the most.” 

Johnny laughs, and Jaehyun smiles. His dimples are just the slightest bit devastating, and Johnny feels something in his gut tug, pulling tightly. Jaehyun’s eyes find his, and Johnny takes a long breath. 

“You should head out,” he says, feeling strangely off-kilter. It’s not a familiar feeling, and he’s not sure if he likes it. 

“I should,” Jaehyun agrees. “Thanks for the drink.” 

Johnny opens his mouth to ask something—Jaehyun’s last name, his number, if he’ll come by again—but the words die on his tongue. The door swings open, and Jaehyun pulls up his hood, his face vanishing back into shadow. 

“Who _was_ that?” Doyoung asks a bit later, when the Andromeda has finally closed for the night and they’re on their way to the bus stop. They both take the same bus, so they walk the darkened streets of Smugglers Avenue together, something Johnny is grateful for—the cover of night turns some friendly faces into menacing ones. Johnny can handle himself in a fight, but he’s not a superhero, or a mercenary. 

The rain has let up slightly, and the end of Doyoung’s z-cig glows blue, making the air smell pleasantly fruity. 

“I don’t know,” Johnny says. “I’d never met him before.” 

“He was watching you the whole time,” Doyoung says. “Are you _sure?_ He seemed to know you.” 

“I don’t know him,” Johnny promises. “Not from the Andromeda crowd, and not from the syntho-sell either.” 

“He was attractive,” Doyoung says casually, and Johnny shoves at him lightly. Their bus comes over the crest of the hill in the distance, gliding to a stop in front of them. 

“77 Northbound to Dawn Street,” the cool AI voice announces as the doors slide open. 

Johnny scans his handscreen, leading Doyoung to the back of the bus. It’s nearly empty, save for a dozing woman and a teenager with earphones in. “I didn’t notice.” 

“Bullshit,” Doyoung says. “You were flirting, Johnny Seo, and don’t try to deny it.” 

“I don’t even know what flirting is anymore,” Johnny says, bemused. “I wasn’t doing anything.” 

“Uh-huh,” Doyoung deadpans. “Wasn’t doing anything except leaning over, and you’ve been working out, too—” 

“Alright, alright,” Johnny concedes. “Fine. But it _has_ been a long time, first off, and second off, I don’t even know if he’s coming back.” 

“Well, if he does,” Doyoung says, “and you need me to cover for you—” 

“You’re ridiculous,” Johnny intercedes, laughing. “You’re absurd.” 

Doyoung sighs and settles in his seat, grinning smugly. “Life’s too short, Johnny. What else are you gonna do? Work yourself to death?” 

“Well, yeah,” Johnny says, and Doyoung rolls his eyes. “I don’t mind routine, Doyoung.” 

“Because you don’t know what you’re _missing_ ,” Doyoung says, gesturing. “You should come out with me and Taeyong and Yuta sometime, Johnny. Like, _out-_ out.” 

“I don’t like the dawnclubs,” Johnny says. “They’re too loud.” 

Doyoung mutters something under his breath. “What are we gonna do with you, seriously?” 

“Not my fault that I’d rather sit and have a beer than dance in a dark room,” Johnny reminds him, patting him on the shoulder. “That’s just called personality.” 

“Well,” Doyoung says, “I guess I can only fault you a little for that. Will you wake me up when we get to 34th?” 

“Yep,” Johnny says, and watches as Doyoung leans his head back and closes his eyes. Johnny watches the rain turn the passing streetlights to yellow mist. And somewhere in there, in the late-night glow of neon and the hum of the bus, Johnny can see Jaehyun’s eyes, dark, beautiful, and unreadable as the double new moons in the sky. 

* * *

Jaehyun comes back the next night, and the next one after that. Both times, he arrives at midnight and stays until closing, still in the same dark jacket, his hair slightly wet with the rain, which falls incessantly. The sloped streets of Smugglers Avenue fill with water that runs down to the ocean at the edge of the port. Each time, he asks for whatever’s on tap, and Johnny wastes more minutes than he’d like talking to him. Most of the time, it’s not even things that matter—his favorite drink to make, the deal with Donghyuck and Jaemin, why those women have odinesium swords. 

Both times, he leaves before Johnny can ask him anything personal, slipping back into the shadows, expression full of promise. 

“He’s probably in the smuggling business,” Johnny tells Doyoung as they put chairs on top of tables at the end of the second night. Jaehyun had tapped the back of Johnny’s hand on his way out, and the spot where his fingers made contact still tingle. Which is stupid, really, if Johnny thinks about it—but it’s been years since anybody has looked at him in a way that makes him feel _seen._ Like his body’s got weight to it.

“My guess is something _really_ illegal and sort of fucked-up. Like…drugs,” Doyoung says. 

“Drugs is the worst you can think of?” Kiko asks. 

“The hood makes sense, then,” Johnny says. 

“I bet he does pod racing,” Kiko says. “The sort where people die and the betting houses make millions of bits.” 

Johnny shakes his head, thinking about the wear on Jaehyun’s coat, and the graceful, careful way he moves. “Not anything like that, I don’t think. Those guys are ostentatious. He likes people, but he’s not—well, I don’t know.” 

Doyoung and Kiko are looking at him with surprised expressions. “You’ve known him for two nights,” Kiko says slowly. 

“Johnny’s good at reading people,” Doyoung says, clapping him on the back. “That’s why Hisashi hired him without an interview.” 

“Hisashi hires everyone without an interview,” Johnny says, and Kiko laughs. “He just picks people he thinks look like they can handle themselves.” 

“Apparently, that was me in that clothing store,” Kiko says, shuddering. “God, I hated that place. I thought I’d never find another job.” She hangs up her apron on the hook by the kitchen as the rest of them gather up their stuff and turn off the lights. Hisashi leaves a little while earlier than the rest of them, at eleven-thirty, to go pick up his wife from her shift at the clinic. “Anyways, Johnny, you should take him home.” 

“What, and let you guys get stampeded at closing?” Johnny says. “No way. You need me.” 

“I’ll call Ten,” Doyoung says. “He owes me a favor.” 

“He owes you _a lot_ of favors,” Kiko says dubiously. “You could get him to work here for an entire week without pay.” 

“We both collectively owe each other a lot of favors,” Doyoung says. “He’ll come cover you.” 

“But—” Johnny says, but Kiko and Doyoung both wave him off. 

“You deserve this,” Kiko says. “You do so much for everyone around here.” 

“You should go and get laid once in a while,” Doyoung agrees, magnanimous. “It’s good for you.” 

Johnny decides it’s best not to argue, even if he doesn’t agree. 

The universe also doesn’t agree, it seems, because Hisashi calls in sick the next day, leaving Johnny to run the kitchen. Standing at the stove, sweating in the thick plumes of smoke and steam, the servo working overtime next to him, Johnny doesn’t have a chance to even check to see if Jaehyun’s there. He’s too busy with plates and dirty napkins.

By the time closing comes, Ten and Doyoung are already changed for their Friday night hopping dawnclubs, dressed in black and glittery chains and on their way to meet Yuta and Taeyong, two of their other friends, downtown. Johnny likes all of them, but their interests don’t intersect Johnny’s very often. Kiko’s girlfriend rolls up on her mag-bike, waving goodbye to Johnny as he locks the back door. 

It’s raining again. The light from the street doesn’t totally reach here, and Johnny pulls out his handscreen, debating splurging on a cab, which saves him the walk through Smuggler’s Avenue. He’s about to check his bank account when there’s the sound of heavy footsteps. 

“Doyoung,” Johnny says without looking up, “did you forget your—” 

“Check again, ratface,” a low, rumbling voice says, and Johnny startles, nearly dropping his handscreen. It’s Petir, the man Johnny banned from the bar, his large frame blocking the exit to the alley. His face is flushed red, and his eyes are unfocused—he’s incredibly drunk, and from the way that his hands are clenched, also furious. 

“Hey,” Johnny says, his throat drying slightly. “Petir. You find a new bar? I know the guys down at the Sapphire Pub would love to have you. They’ve got great—” 

“You made a real mistake the other day,” Petir says, taking a staggering step in Johnny’s direction. “A big one. Nobody tells me where I can and _can’t_ go, huh?” 

“Petir, you were harassing a _kid,_ ” Johnny reminds him, carefully reaching for the handle behind him and testing it quietly. _Why_ did he lock up before calling a cab? He’s good in a fight. He’s _good_ in a fight, but Petir is massive, drunk, and furious. “It wasn’t the first time, either. I had to.” 

“Your type,” Petir says, and takes another shuddering step, “thinks you can do whatever you want. Untouchable in that fucking bar, huh? Not right now. Not when there’s nobody watching.” 

“Petir, please,” Johnny says, doing his best to keep his voice steady. “You don’t wanna do this.” 

“Yes I fucking _do_ ,” Petir growls. “I wanted to punch your pretty face in the minute you thought you could boss me around. Now _you’re_ gonna know what it feels like to be powerless.” 

Johnny is given just enough forewarning when Petir swings that he’s able to duck, elbowing the larger man as hard as he can before booking it towards the street and the front of the bar, where there are no doubt patrons still lingering. 

He’s caught by the shoulder before he can get too far, though, and his heel slips from underneath him, Petir’s breath hot and stale on his face. Johnny flings his hands up to protect his face, but instead of a blow, he goes sprawling, skittering backwards. He manages to catch himself on the edge of the dumpster, head spinning, just in time to watch a dark figure kick out Petir’s knee and knock him cold with a punch that flies so fast Johnny misses the motion. 

“What the—” Johnny says, cut off when the figure turns, lowering his hood. “Wait— _Jaehyun?_ ” 

“Are you alright?” Jaehyun asks, shaking out his hand and crossing to where Johnny’s standing. 

“I’m fine,” Johnny says, bewildered. He looks between Petir’s prone form and Jaehyun, standing in his black jacket and looking entirely unbothered. His hair is barely ruffled. “But you—how?” 

Jaehyun, still unbelievably calm, shrugs. “Part of the gig.” 

“What gig? What’s the gig?” Johnny asks, blinking. “Jaehyun—” 

“Let’s not stand by the dumpsters,” Jaehyun says, and leads Johnny to the front of the pub. “I’m glad you’re not hurt.” 

“Were you waiting for me?” Johnny asks, looking up and down the empty street. 

The tops of Jaehyun’s ears go the slightest bit red, and Johnny almost forgets that he’d knocked a man nearly twice his size out cold with one hit. “Maybe. You were in the kitchen all night, and I wanted—” 

He cuts himself off, ears going a little redder. He doesn’t break eye contact, though, and Johnny finds himself shifting closer, pulled in by the shape of Jaehyun’s mouth. 

Johnny reaches down and takes Jaehyun’s hand, the one he’d hit Petir with. The contact thrills him, sending a shiver dancing across his skin and down his spine. “What do you _do,_ Jaehyun?” 

Jaehyun doesn’t answer. Johnny still can’t read the look in his eyes, and there’s a moment where they both take a breath. 

Then Jaehyun backs him under the awning of the Andromeda and kisses him so soundly Johnny’s mind goes blank. 

Jaehyun’s cheek is a little cold and his hair is a little wet, but Johnny pulls him closer, one hand on Jaehyun’s jaw and the other sliding to his waist. Jaehyun makes a low noise, a rumble in his chest, and pulls back, breathless and still flushed. 

Johnny laughs, giddy and disbelieving, and Jaehyun smiles softly in return.

“Come back with me,” Johnny says. 

“Yes,” Jaehyun replies. 

They leave Petir in the alleyway, and Johnny doesn’t think about him for the rest of the night. Jaehyun doesn’t even have bruises on his knuckles, but the way he kisses Johnny makes it all fairly hard to remember. 

And for now, Johnny doesn’t mind. 

* * *

Sometime in the early hours, before dawn, Jaehyun slides out from underneath Johnny’s arm and searches for his clothes in the grey light. 

“You going?” Johnny mumbles, eyes still closed. 

“Yeah,” Jaehyun says. “I gotta.” 

“S’okay,” Johnny replies, turning onto his side. He doesn’t reach out for Jaehyun—what difference does one night make, really? “Will you come back?” 

Jaehyun turns, his shirt in his hands. There’s a scar just below his collarbone on the right side, thick and white. There are scars all over his body, actually, that Johnny had discovered last night, one by one, varying in size and look. Puckered red rings, smooth, slightly discolored patches. Long dark lines down his forearms. 

No bruises on his knuckles, no, but an old, violent history displayed on his body. 

Johnny hadn’t asked. Jaehyun hadn’t offered. They all have their secrets—Jaehyun, most of all, with his unreadable diamond-ice eyes and a smile that makes Johnny feel like he’s been sucker-punched. 

The muscles in Jaehyun’s abdomen flex as he gets his shirt over his head, and Johnny wishes Jaehyun would give him a resounding yes. 

Johnny wants to see him again. _God,_ does Johnny want to see him again. 

“Maybe,” Jaehyun offers, neutral and a little cagey in a way that is quickly becoming familiar. 

Johnny turns onto his back again and closes his eyes. Breathes out. “Okay. I’ll take that. I would like…I’d like to see you again, if that’s possible.” 

“I’d like that too,” Jaehyun says, barely above a whisper. 

Johnny nods, sleep already pushing at the edges of his mind. He has work at the syntho-sell in a few hours, selling slightly-outdated nav systems and ship repair kits to people in Smugglers Avenue, followed by another shift at Andromeda. “M’kay. Be safe.” 

Jaehyun doesn’t respond, but Johnny doesn’t notice—he’s already asleep, dreaming of a long torso and eyes that hide far more than they say. 

* * *

Jaehyun is back the next night. 

Johnny can’t hold back the smile that bursts across his face at the sight of him, wrapped in the familiar black jacket, striding surely between the tables and sitting down at the bar in front of him. 

“You’re back,” Johnny says, and is rewarded with the biggest smile he’s seen on Jaehyun yet, one that threatens to crinkle the corners of his eyes. 

“Yeah, there’s this guy that works here,” Jaehyun says, and Johnny laughs. “He’s pretty alright. Takes the bus. Knows everybody. You might’ve seen him.” 

“Sounds familiar,” Johnny replies, sliding a beer in Jaehyun’s direction. “On the house. Give me forty-five minutes, okay? And then we can go.” 

Forty-five minutes later, at one o’clock on the dot, Johnny puts up the chairs so fast he almost pulls something in his back. Doyoung watches him smugly. “That good?” he asks. 

“No comment,” Johnny replies, and Doyoung and Kiko laugh at him. Johnny’s in such a good mood that he can’t even think of something snarky in reply. 

“When you want something else to do with him besides fuck,” Doyoung says, ignoring the unamused glance Johnny throws his way, “he’s invited to meet Taeyong and the others. I think he’d fit in great.” 

Johnny imagines Doyoung’s friends and Jaehyun in the same room together and laughs. “Actually, I think that’d work. Somehow.” 

“I still barely know him, so,” Doyoung adds. “Y’know. If it looks like he’s gonna stick around, bring him by.” 

Johnny gives him a thumbs-up. “Noted. Thanks, Doyoung. And Kiko,” he adds, who’s dutifully wiping down the bar. 

“You’re covered,” she says, waving at him. “Go. He’s waiting in the rain.” 

“You guys rock,” Johnny says, flinging his apron off and jogging towards the door. “Seriously. You’re the best.” 

Jaehyun’s eyes are dark, and he watches Johnny with a promise on his face and near the corner of his mouth that makes something in Johnny’s gut swoop. 

Jaehyun orders them a taxi, and Johnny tells the nav system his address, his knee bouncing impatiently. 

Jaehyun must feel the same way, because he backs Johnny against the door as soon as they get there, his tongue sliding across Johnny’s bottom lip and teeth, one hand going to his waist. There’s some frantic scrambling out of clothes, Johnny’s teeth grazing Jaehyun’s jaw, and then his throat. Jaehyun’s breath hitches, and Johnny puts his fingers against the scar on his collarbone, lips lingering just above it.

“How did you get this?” Johnny asks as Jaehyun lifts his hips, shimmying out of his pants. 

“Vapo-sword,” Jaehyun says breathlessly. 

Johnny stops, his hands halting their slow trek down Jaehyun’s sides. “A _vapo-sword?_ Someone tried to kill you with a _vapo-sword?_ ” 

“Can we just,” Jaehyun asks, putting one of his hands over Johnny’s. “Can we just not talk about it? I don’t want to talk about it.” 

_Vapo-swords are banned,_ Johnny wants to say. _Not even the high-line, shadiest of shady smugglers can get them._

“Johnny,” Jaehyun says, and Johnny looks up, his free hand still pressed to the scar on Jaehyun’s collarbone. “Will you kiss me?” 

There’s something strange about his face as he says it, just for a second. Johnny leans up and Jaehyun tilts his chin down, and Johnny kisses him once, twice, and reaches down between their bodies.

Johnny doesn’t find his words again until later, when they’re lying in the darkness of Johnny’s room. The planes of Jaehyun’s face are just illuminated by the light of the double moons and the streetlights hazily filtering through the curtains over the window. 

“Do you see your parents often?” Jaehyun asks. His shoulder is a warm point of contact against Johnny’s arm. 

“On all the holidays,” Johnny says, “and sometimes over the summer, because my sister isn’t in school.” He pauses, and looks over at Jaehyun. “Why?” 

“I don’t know,” Jaehyun says, and something in his voice tells Johnny he's being honest. “I never knew my parents, I guess. It was just me.” 

“Did you grow up in Port Ellis?” 

Jaehyun makes a noncommittal sound. “I didn’t really grow up anywhere. I sort of was just…moved around until they said I was strong enough to start working.” 

Questions push at Johnny, but he gets the feeling Jaehyun is just going to sidestep again. “My hometown is Westlock,” he says. “Two hours by air-rail.” 

“That’s far.” 

“It’s not a bad trip, though,” Johnny says. “It goes through the center continent, so I get to see all the forests and Mercury Lake. And my sister and my dad come to pick me up from the station, too, so it’s all worth it. My mom cooks, and we go see a movie or watch aetherwave reality TV reruns.” He smiles into the darkness. “It’ll always be home more than anywhere else.” 

“That sounds really nice,” Jaehyun says quietly. 

“I’ve been really lucky,” Johnny says. “We never had much—I work two jobs so I can help pay for their med insurance and the house. But it’s always been—it’s always been good. Solid.” 

“Solid,” Jaehyun echoes, and Johnny reaches for him before he can think about it. Something terrible and ominous flares in the center of his chest for a brief moment, before burning out. 

A question presses forward, but it doesn’t have a shape yet, just a wordless want. 

Jaehyun’s breath is warm on his shoulder. Johnny traces a fingertip over the scar just below his collarbone, the one that had almost killed him. 

_Who are you?_ Johnny asks. That’s not the right question, but it’s the one at the forefront of his mind. _What do you do? Why can’t you say?_

“I can’t believe it was a vapo-sword,” Johnny whispers, and he hears Jaehyun huff a laugh. “I don’t know if you’re lying to me or not.” 

“Guess you’ll just have to trust me,” Jaehyun replies. 

Johnny smiles against the pillow. “Guess so.” 

A decision like that has the potential to break his heart, he thinks. Trusting a guy like Jaehyun, with his split-second expressions and his impossible-to-read eyes. But he listens, and kisses Johnny like he means it, and he asks small, shy questions that make Johnny feel dangerously wanted.

Weeks don’t change lives. And this one—this one certainly didn’t. Johnny Seo is, without a doubt, unchanged. 

(But it _could_ have, Johnny thinks. Seven days of Jaehyun smiling at him has the potential to change his life.)

* * *

When he wakes up, the bed is empty, and Jaehyun is gone. 

Johnny sits up, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and debates for a half-second about how he feels about it. Not betrayed—he hadn’t known Jaehyun that long. Not upset—well, maybe a little, but at the same time, Jaehyun clearly does something dangerous for a living, so maybe it makes sense. 

Confused seems to fit well enough, so he goes with that and hauls himself out of bed to get ready for work. Jaehyun has revealed approaching nothing about himself, so all Johnny has is a vague idea of his sense of humor and the way he smiles. He knows there’s something _in_ there—there _has_ to be, otherwise Jaehyun wouldn’t ask about his sister or his favorite place in Smugglers Avenue, and what he does with his friends when he’s free. 

Johnny is fairly certain, at least, that he’ll be back tonight. He’ll ask for Jaehyun’s number, and then next time he’s confused, he can just message Jaehyun and ask. 

For today, though, he grinds through the hours at the syntho-sell, categorizing boxes of donated parts and walking people through models and sizings for dashboard panels and ship-light replacements. He manages to sneak a nap in before he shows up at the Andromeda at six, changing his shirt to the black ones they wear and pinning his nametag to his chest. 

Tonight being a Sunday means it’s a little less busy than usual, with a lot of their crowd prepping for whatever the work week might bring. Johnny thinks it’s funny that even interstellar criminals have to work a nine-to-five sometimes. It’s a good thing, too, because Johnny spends half of his time staring at the door, waiting for Jaehyun to walk through and pull down his hood. Doyoung catches him in the act sometime around eleven, an empty serving tray tucked under his arm. 

“Waiting for that guy?” 

Johnny jerks upright and tears his eyes off the door. “What? No.” 

“You’re gazing at the door forlornly,” Doyoung reminds him. “Just say yes.” 

“Yes,” Johnny says, eyes straying back to the door and the window besides it. None of the people passing by are Jaehyun, either. 

“Did he ghost you?” 

“Sort of,” Johnny says. “I mean, like, we never even _said_ anything. It was two nights, Doyoung. One week is all I’ve known him for. I’m not sure he _can_ ghost me if it’s only been that long.” 

“Well, if he vanished without a trace, I’d call that ghosting,” Doyoung says. “You don’t even know his last name.” 

Johnny sighs and turns around, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder as the sensor over the door chimes brightly as it swings open. “I feel like a dumbass.” 

“I mean, only a little,” Doyoung says, conciliatory. “But it makes sense. You were really into him, and he was supposedly really into you.” 

“I’m a little worried too, honestly,” Johnny says. The new guests seat themselves, and Johnny raises a hand in greeting at the sight of familiar faces. “I’ll be right with you guys!” 

“Thanks, Johnny!” one of them says. They work over in the junkyard at the end of the portside street. “Can you bring some food menus?” 

“Yep,” Johnny says, grabbing a couple off the bar and turning back to Doyoung. “That might be weird to say—” 

“It is, just a bit,” Doyoung says, and Johnny ignores him. 

“—but you didn’t see what had been done to him,” Johnny says. “Doyoung, I think he does something dangerous and possibly really violent for a living.” 

“As long as he’s not a bureaucrat,” Doyoung says as Johnny slips out from behind the bar, “then honestly, it’s probably not that bad.” 

The rest of the night ticks by. Jaehyun never shows, and Johnny can’t help the tiny blip of disappointment he feels as he locks up for the night. There’s a fair bit of worry there, too, but there’s nothing he can do except keep going forward. Jaehyun hadn’t made a dent on his life and his routine, and Johnny didn’t know enough about him to get attached. 

But his mind wanders back to those scars again and again, and Jaehyun’s face when he’d talked about not having a family. 

_Who are you, Jaehyun?_ Johnny asks himself, even though he knows the answer is nothing but a massive blank space. 

He gets on with the rest of his week, just like that. He works more hours at the syntho-sell, and heads to the bank to wire more money to his parents. He goes out with Doyoung on Thursday and has a pretty good time, actually. He meets with a couple of friends for lunch on Friday—Irene, who he works with, Lexia, who he _used_ to work with, and Mark, who he doesn’t see often but still feels a strong sense of responsibility for. 

“Tell me you’re not still mag-car racing, man,” Johnny asks him over his BLT. 

Mark gives him a guilty look. “I’m not a very good liar.” 

“Out of all the dangerous, illegal things,” Irene says, “you picked that?” 

“I mean, at least it’s cool,” Lexia says, sipping her drink. 

Irene gives her an exasperated look. 

“I mean, no, it’s not cool, you’ll fucking die,” Lexia says. “There. Better?” 

Mark turns back to Johnny, pleading. “C’mon, Johnny. I’m _good_ at it, and it brings in money, which I need.” 

“Come work at the Andromeda,” Johnny replies. This is a conversation they’ve had about a million times before. “Hisashi and Doyoung would love you.” 

“I can’t do nights,” Mark says, “because—” 

“Because of your brother, I know,” Johnny sighs. “Well, when he gets old enough, swing by and Hisashi will hire both of you.” 

Lexia snorts. “Yeah, because the last thing the fuckin’ kid needs is to be serving beer to mobsters.” 

“I’m not a kid,” Mark protests. “I’m twenty-one.” 

“That’s a kid,” Lexia repeats, fixing with him a glare. 

“The mobsters are fine,” Johnny says, waving a hand. “It’s the loners you gotta watch out for.” He thinks of Petir, lurking in the alleyway, and shudders. “The groups just get drunk and leave.” 

“That, and everyone just likes you,” Mark points out. “You’re impossible _not_ to like.” 

“True, you’re the friendliest guy I know,” Lexia agrees. 

Irene makes a face. “That’s only because you hang out with the worst people ever.” 

“Except for us,” Mark says, grinning. “We’re the least criminal-criminals that Lexia knows.” 

“And I’m not even a criminal,” Johnny says. “How’s that for a package deal?” 

Lexia rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. You guys are chatty today. Didn’t anyone have a shitty week?” She turns to Johnny. “I haven’t seen _you_ around in a while.” 

“He was getting laid,” Irene says, “and possibly also maybe considering falling in love.” 

“That’s a bit of an overstatement,” Johnny says quickly, not liking the look on Lexia’s face. “I mean, I _was_ getting laid, but there was no falling in love. It was two nights. I’d known him for a week. It didn’t—” 

He stops. _It didn’t mean anything_ isn’t true—it _had_ meant something, and the tiny, impossible ember in Johnny’s chest knows that. 

“It’s not something I’m stuck on,” he says, which is closer to the truth. “Two nights, it was great, and now I’m back.” 

“Wow,” Mark says. “I was expecting you to say it was work, or maybe you’d gone to Westlock. But a _guy?_ ” 

“It’s been a bit,” Johnny agrees. “It was…good. Yeah, it was good. I’m glad it happened. But he didn’t stick around, and I’m not torn up about it.” 

His friends nod, and the conversation turns to something else. The week finishes in the same way it always does—with swarms of people in the Andromeda on Friday and Saturday, so many that they run out of tap beer many hours before closing. There was some big soccer game, apparently, that a lot of people had money on. There are a lot of celebratory toasts that happen, but there are a couple people that look genuinely very upset. Johnny likes soccer—doesn’t have much time for it, but still supports their city’s team and all that—so he spends a good chunk of the night talking about plays and goals and fouls, Jaehyun drifting farther and farther from his mind. 

By the time Monday rolls around, almost two weeks since he first met Jaehyun, Johnny has resigned to the fact that they’re probably never going to meet again. 

* * *

And then, of course, that’s exactly when Jaehyun walks right back into his life. 

* * *

It happens on Tuesday evening. Johnny’s talking to Lexia, who’s swung by for a cocktail and some advice regarding their old boss at the mechanic shop, where Johnny used to fuel ships while Lexia fixed them. 

“He’s a bastard,” Lexia is saying. “I deserved that raise, and that motherfucker _knows it._ And he gave it to fucking Baz. I _hate_ Baz.” 

“I know you do,” Johnny says, sliding a new whiskey her way. “Which is fair, because Baz sucks.” 

“I can’t believe that motherfucker made you _train_ him before you left,” Lexia says. “I would’ve shot Baz in the face if I had to spend more than five minutes with him. And then myself. And then probably everyone else in that garage too, I hate them all.” She downs the entire glass of whiskey in two swallows. Johnny watches her, wondering how someone so small is capable of so much hatred.

Lexia puts her glass down as the door swings open. Johnny raises a hand in greeting, only to make direct eye contact with Jaehyun. 

Johnny freezes with his hand in the air, and Jaehyun has one foot on the threshold, like he’s thinking about turning and making a break for it. He looks different—his hair is a couple shades darker, and much shorter than it was, buzzed on the sides. There’s a fading bruise on his cheekbone, and he looks tired, like he hasn’t sat down in a while. There’s a thin, gaunt look to his face, too, like he hasn’t eaten recently. 

“Are you even listening to me?” Lexia asks, and then notices Johnny’s expression. “Who are you— _oh,_ wait, is that him?” 

“Jaehyun,” Johnny says, more to himself than to her. “That’s him.” 

“But I thought—” Lexia starts, and Johnny nods. 

“Me too.” 

“It’s been two weeks, right? That’s a while.” 

But he’s here, isn’t he? Standing in the doorway of the Andromeda looking worn-down and uncertain, like he’s not sure if he’s welcome again. 

Johnny lifts his chin and gestures. Jaehyun’s shoulders relax just a touch, and he weaves between the tables gracefully, stopping just shy of the stools. 

“Hello,” Jaehyun says, almost too quiet to be heard. 

“You’re back,” Johnny replies. And then, after half a second, adds, “I was worried. It’s good to see you.” 

Jaehyun looks like he’s about to collapse with relief, and Johnny can’t help the tiny smile that creeps across his face as Jaehyun sits down on the stool next to Lexia, who gives him a once-over. She raises her eyebrows at Johnny as Jaehyun rolls up the sleeves of his jacket, like, _how’d you meet him?_

Johnny shrugs. Luck, mostly, and a little bit of patience. He honestly is still trying to process that Jaehyun is _back_ —just when Johnny had finally started to believe that he’d never see Jaehyun again. 

“Oh, by the way,” Johnny says, setting Jaehyun’s beer down in front of him, “this is my friend Lexia. We used to work together. Lexia, this is Jaehyun. He’s a sort-of regular at the Andromeda.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Lexia says, her chin in her hand. “Johnny said you’re good in bed.” 

Jaehyun chokes on his beer. “W—” 

“That’s bullshit, don’t believe her,” Johnny tells him. “She’s messing with you.” 

“Johnny!” someone calls from the other side of the room, and Johnny skirts out from behind the bar, patting Jaehyun on the back as he wipes his eyes. He hears Lexia’s throaty cackle as he tracks down the person who called his name. It’s Donghyuck, and he wants to know if Johnny’s seen Jaemin, because of some factions stuff, and some rival stuff, and now Donghyuck is worried. 

“Sorry,” Johnny says, clearing away some of the empty glasses on the table. “I haven’t seen him since he was last in here with you.” 

Donghyuck chews on the side of his thumb for a minute, thinking. “Okay, thanks,” he says. “I’m just—it’s hard, because of the rivalry. I don’t wanna point fingers until I know all the facts.” 

“I can ask around,” Johnny says. 

Donghyuck’s face lights up. “Would you? That would mean the world.” 

“No problem,” Johnny says, laughing as Donghyuck jumps to his feet and flings his arms around Johnny’s neck. “I know how much he means to you.” 

“Thank you thank you thank you,” Donghyuck says. “You’re really the best, you know that?” 

Johnny pats Donghyuck on the back and promises to send another cherry rum his way. He swings by a couple more tables to ask about Jaemin—some simply don’t care about Jaemin’s faction, and others, like Johnny haven’t seen or heard from him since he was last in here. 

“Doesn’t he like that Neolite kid?” one woman asks, jerking her chin at Donghyuck. “Why not ask him?” 

“He’s the one asking,” Johnny says. “You haven’t seen Jaemin?” 

“Nope,” she says. She finishes her drink and holds out the glass to Johnny. “But I will take another drink, please.” 

Johnny sighs, thanks her, and heads back to the bar. Jaehyun and Lexia, who are—very strangely—chatting animatedly, look up when he comes back. 

“What’s up?” Jaehyun asks. “You looked bummed.” 

“Donghyuck’s enemy-slash-boyfriend is missing,” Johnny says, grabbing the components for the woman’s drink. “Nobody’s seen him in a while.” 

“He’s a faction kid?” Lexia asks. Johnny nods, and she snorts. “Then he’ll turn up. They do that for the drama, to get their parents to notice them.” 

“Maybe,” Johnny says, and hands the drink to Lexia. “Hey, run that to the woman in the green jacket.” 

“You can just say, _Lexia please go I’d like to kiss my boyfriend now_ ,” she scoffs, grabbing the drink. 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Johnny and Jaehyun say at the same time, and exchange an amused look. Lexia makes another derisive noise and goes to deliver the drink, and Johnny leans a hip on the bar and crosses his arms. 

“So,” he says. 

Jaehyun sits back in his chair, the corner of his mouth twitching. “So.” 

“So, you look pretty rough,” Johnny says. “Are you alright?” 

“I’m okay,” Jaehyun says, then pauses. “Well, I’m okay _now._ I wanted to come back as soon as I left, but—work got away from me, and I didn’t have your number—” 

“You’re not gonna tell me if I ask about it, right?” Johnny asks, and Jaehyun shakes his head. “Okay, yeah, that’s what I thought. That’s okay, I think.” 

Jaehyun blinks. “It’s…okay?” 

Johnny shrugs. “I mean, I’ll give you my number so you have it. And then maybe eventually, after a couple dates, you can tell me about it. If you’re gonna stick around?” 

“I’m sticking around,” Jaehyun says. “For as long as I can.” He pauses, frowns, and sits forward. “Wait a second—did you say _dates?_ ” 

“If you want,” Johnny says casually, trying to ignore the way his heart is banging around inside of his chest. It feels like he’s about to bust a rib. God, he’s way out of practice with this. The last guy he dated dumped him three weeks into their relationship without a word, and he’d done all the asking. 

“I do…want,” Jaehyun says slowly. “If you do.” 

“I do,” Johnny confirms. 

“Sweet,” Jaehyun says, and there’s a beat of awkward silence where Johnny has to stick his hands in his pockets to stop himself from giving Jaehyun a thumbs-up or something stupid like that.

It passes, though, when Jaehyun asks about the last two weeks and Johnny gives him a rundown on all of his friends. Doyoung stops to greet Jaehyun with way more warmth and friendliness than both Jaehyun _and_ Johnny were anticipating. He even sticks around afterwards to help put chairs up and wipe things down. 

“Do you have a place you’re staying at?” Johnny asks Jaehyun as he locks the back door. A cold wind sweeps through the alleyway, and they both shiver. Johnny remembers Petir, lying on the concrete, and Jaehyun’s unbruised knuckles. 

He doesn’t ask about that, either. Another curiosity for another day, maybe when Jaehyun’s eyes aren’t as dark as his hair and jacket, and Johnny can get a better read on him. 

“I do,” Jaehyun says. “It’s sort of…the opposite direction.” 

Johnny hesitates. This time already feels _realer—_ Jaehyun is back, somehow, and he says he’s staying. He has a place where he lives. He’s met one of Johnny’s friends. He’s not a stranger in a dark hood in the rain—he’s becoming something else, something _more._ Johnny has noticed him, now, and he’s unlikely to ever stop. 

He’s waiting for Jaehyun to ask, _can I come over?_ or something like that, but Jaehyun is looking at him like he doesn’t know what to say, and Johnny thinks, _maybe he really_ doesn’t _know what to say._

Maybe Jaehyun is just as out-of-practice as he is. Johnny hadn’t considered that, but looking at Jaehyun now, with his shy dimples and guarded expression, he thinks that maybe he should. 

“Do you want to come over?” he asks, and it’s awkward and a little unbearable. 

“Yes,” Jaehyun says, like he did the first night, when there was more mystery but only half the charm—charm in the way Jaehyun watches the streetlights pass as the two of them and Doyoung take the bus back home. Charm in the way Jaehyun stops to turn on the light and take off his shoes when they get back to Johnny’s apartment, not quite comfortable but still unmistakably familiar with where Johnny’s bedroom is. Charm in the way he stands in the living room with his coat still on, looking lost and and a little confused. 

“I haven’t done this before,” Jaehyun says. “I don’t know—I don’t know.” 

He looks extra-tired with all the lights on, illuminating the half-moons beneath his eyes the sallowness of his skin. 

The pinching feeling is back, right in the center of Johnny’s chest. He kisses Jaehyun gently, one hand on his jaw. “It’s okay,” Johnny says. “We don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want. We could just watch a movie.” 

“A movie sounds nice,” Jaehyun agrees, a little hoarse. 

“Do you want to take your jacket off?” Johnny asks, tossing his stuff to the side. 

“It’s alright,” Jaehyun says. “I’m pretty cold.” 

They pick out a movie neither of them have seen before, and Jaehyun falls asleep about five minutes in with his feet tucked under him, his head tilted back against the cushions. 

“Jaehyun,” Johnny whispers, nudging him. “C’mon, you’ll wanna sleep in a real bed.” 

Jaehyun shifts. “I’m okay right here,” he says without opening his eyes. “I’m so tired I could sleep on the floor.”

“Yeah, but the bed is so comfy,” Johnny coaxes, grabbing his hand. “Jaehyun. Come on.” 

Jaehyun makes a grumpy noise, but lets Johnny haul him off the couch and into the bedroom. 

Johnny moves to unzip his jacket, but Jaehyun’s eyes fly open and his hand comes up to cover Johnny’s. “I—” 

“You can’t sleep in your jacket,” Johnny tells him slowly.

Jaehyun gives him a wary, guarded look. His eyes are entirely unreadable. 

“I’m not gonna ask questions,” Johnny promises, “until you’re ready to tell me.” 

Jaehyun’s jaw clenches and unclenches, but finally, he lifts his hand and lets Johnny unzip his jacket and slide it from his shoulders, revealing the harness he’s wearing underneath. 

And the two pistols, and the knife, and the damage-proof vest, and the fact that his shirt is missing a sleeve, and his arm is covered in white gauze and smells like med-spray, the type of stuff they use to seal up massive wounds. Johnny knows the smell because tons of the faction people and the mob bosses march through the doors reeking of it, like menthol and plastic. 

“What the fuck,” Johnny says. “That’s—Jaehyun, _what_?” 

“Sorry,” Jaehyun mutters. “I forgot to take it all off before I came to see you.” 

“That’s literally—that’s not even remotely close to what I was going to say,” Johnny says. “I don’t care about the weapons—” 

“It’s two guns, how can you not—” 

“I’m surrounded by heavily-armed people pretty much every single waking moment,” Johnny says. “I’m more worried about your _arm._ ” 

“Oh,” Jaehyun says, lifting it. “It’ll be fine. It was just—” 

He stops short, and Johnny raises an eyebrow. Every part of him screams, _ask him!_ but he resists and waits. 

“A mild altercation,” Jaehyun says eventually. “What I do can be, um, pretty dangerous.” 

“This is your entire arm,” Johnny points out. 

“You said you wouldn’t ask questions,” Jaehyun reminds him. 

Johnny gives him a look. “I’m _not._ I’m just worried. Do we need to take you to the clinic?” 

“No!” Jaehyun shouts, panicked, and Johnny jolts in surprise, not expecting such a visceral reaction. “Sorry,” he says guiltily. “But no. I’m not a huge fan of clinics.” 

A hundred questions are ricocheting around the inside of Johnny’s head, and he desperately tries to stop himself from drawing conclusions. He knows so little about Jaehyun, except for the fact that his job makes him get hurt and makes him feel like he needs to carry two pistols and a knife around under his jacket. 

There’s the same pinch in Johnny’s chest. Jaehyun is looking at him warily again, like he’s not sure how Johnny’s going to react. 

“Well, if it’s not bleeding,” Johnny says, “then it’s your call.” 

“No clinic,” Jaehyun repeats, and Johnny nods. That seems to calm him, the tension draining out of his shoulders. 

“Okay,” Johnny says. “Well, you can’t sleep in your weapon harness, either, so take that off. I’ll get you a new shirt.” 

Jaehyun’s mouth quirks, and Johnny cups a hand against his jaw briefly before rummaging to find him pajamas. Jaehyun is yawning by the time Johnny gets his socks off and the lights turned off, settling on on the right side while the pillow on Jaehyun’s side adjusts to fit his head. 

“This mattress is weird, too,” Jaehyun says, shifting around on it. “It’s so nice. I’ve never had one of those ones that fits to your body.” 

“A lot of people have them these days,” Johnny says, yawning. “They’re not as expensive as they used to be.” He turns to his side, watching Jaehyun shift for a couple moments more. “Are you sure you’re okay, Jaehyun?” 

“I’m alright,” Jaehyun assures him. “It doesn’t hurt that bad.” 

Johnny assumes he means his arm, though that’s not really what he meant. He doesn’t push it, though, because Jaehyun is already sliding back into sleep, lashes fluttering slowly. 

Hopefully, there will be plenty of time for that later.

“Night, Jaehyun,” Johnny says softly, but Jaehyun is already asleep. 

* * *

Johnny wakes up to an empty bed. 

Disappointment rattles through him, an ache that takes him off guard. He lies there for a long minute, trying to fight back the bitter, selfish feeling that rises in his chest. Acid burns his throat, and he scolds himself for getting too hopeful. There were the weapons, and Jaehyun’s arm—the fact that he’d changed his hair, the bruise on his cheekbone. Everything points towards _illegal_ and _dangerous_ , the sort of work that pulls a person in. Smuggling, probably. Maybe a bodyguard for some mob boss. Either way, he’s gone again, and he’s _really_ probably not coming back this time. 

“Stupid,” he mutters, sitting up and rubbing the grit from his eyes. “You’re a—” 

He stops. Jaehyun’s harness is still sitting on the chair to Johnny’s desk. 

At the same time, his front door clicks open. There’s some rustling, and Johnny slides out of bed just in time to see Jaehyun with an armful of groceries, nudging the door closed behind him. 

“Oh,” Jaehyun says. “You’re awake.” 

“You went…to the grocery store?” Johnny asks, grabbing one of the bags so Jaehyun can shrug his jacket off. He’s still wearing one of Johnny’s shirts. 

“Yeah,” Jaehyun says. “I was starving, and I thought—did you want breakfast? I can cook.” 

“You can cook?” Johnny asks, surprised. “Like _real_ cooking? Like you put all the ingredients together on your own?” 

Jaehyun’s ears have gone red. “I know most people use make-a-meal, and I bought a couple in case you preferred them, but if you don’t mind—” 

“No, of course I don’t mind,” Johnny says quickly, waving Jaehyun off. “I just think—wow, cooking. _Wow,_ that’s so cool. Not what I would’ve expected from you at all.” 

Johnny gives Jaehyun’s bandaged arm a wry look, and Jaehyun’s ears get a little redder. 

“I haven’t eaten a homemade meal since I last visited my parents,” Johnny says, sitting down at the counter as Jaehyun takes out eggs and various vegetables. “How’d you learn? It’s sort of a niche skill.” 

“The place where I grew up had a cafeteria,” Jaehyun says. “Where are your—?” 

“Cabinets right above you,” Johnny says, and Jaehyun starts taking out bowls and pans. The borrowed shirt rides up just a bit over the waistline of his pants, and Johnny can see a smooth red scar bisecting the ridge of his hip. “So you learned from them?” 

“God, no,” Jaehyun says. “The cafeteria food was awful. But I saw them cooking back there and thought that I’d try it.” He starts chopping vegetables. "And I don't get to do it near as often as I'd like," he says, "so this is—this is nice. Is it too soon to say that? That it's nice?" 

"I don't think so," Johnny says. "It's been twice. You've slept over. You're cooking me breakfast. I think it can be nice." 

Jaehyun, as it turns out, is an outstanding cook. He does something fantastic with the vegetables, and scrambles some eggs. They sit for a little while until Johnny has to go to work at the syntho-sell, and Jaehyun kisses his cheek and promises to meet him at the Andromeda later. 

"You look happy," Johnny's coworker Jeno comments as he flips the sign to open and presses the button to raise the blinds. "Doyoung says you have a boyfriend." 

"He's not my boyfriend," Johnny says, and then pauses. "But...if everything goes well, he might be." 

Jeno gives him an amused look and shakes his head. Business is fairly slow, with the exception of a random post-lunch rush. Mark swings by to flirt with Jeno a little bit and ask Johnny for help with his homework, which Johnny has always found amusing. University is free in Eylo, but Johnny went straight from high school to working, forgoing trade school or a degree for the job at the mechanic, where Lexia still works. 

As four-thirty approaches and Jeno talks to a woman about nav system compatibility, Johnny opens his hand screen and sees that he's got a message from Jaehyun. 

_hey where do you work? can i come see you?_

Johnny's heart squeezes in his chest, and he bites back a smile as he types out a response. _Yeah I've got some time before I head over to the bar_

He attaches his location underneath the text and sends it. "Hey, Jeno," he says, checking the time, "I'm gonna head out early, okay? I'm gonna grab dinner." 

"No problem," Jeno says. "I'll probably manage without you." He gestures at the empty store, and Johnny laughs. 

The autumn air is cool on his cheeks. The sun is just starting to set in the north, turning the sky purple and teal. Just below it, the two moons start to take shape, yellow shadows through the clouds. Smugglers Avenue is busy during the day but comes alive during the night. People talk in a hundred different languages, and ships constantly rise and fall from the port. An ad drone speeds by, offering a buy-one-get-one for families when they buy a new handscreen. Troopers in combat fatigues march past, followed by teenagers decked out in streetwear, their shoes clean. Smuggles carrying crates of things, shipping and salvage employees yelling at middlemen, enforcers checking flying licenses. 

And then there's Jaehyun, navigating the crowd easily, his hands in his pockets. He looks a lot better than he did last night, tired and hungry and worn-down. Johnny waves when they make eye contact, and Jaehyun stops. 

"Hi," he says. His jacket is unzipped, but he's changed his clothes—now he’s wearing a grey t-shirt and slim-fitting pants, cleaner and in one piece. "How was work?" 

"Slow," Johnny says. "The syntho-sell isn't too interesting. Which is good, I think, because the Andromeda is so tiring." 

"Tiring?" Jaehyun asks as they fall into step. Johnny doesn't quite know where they're going, only that he's hungry and the better restaurants are a little farther down from the ports. The food here is overpriced, mostly because this is about as far as the tourists go when they come to see the Avenue. 

"In a good way," Johnny says. "I love the people, and I like being a bartender, but I'm on my feet for so long, and someone always needs something from me. The syntho-sell balances that out, y'know? It's less demanding." 

Jaehyun's expression is thoughtful. "Huh." 

"You like the Andromeda, though, don't you?" Johnny asks. 

"I just like people," Jaehyun admits. "I don't...socialize a lot like that during work. Bars are nice because I can go and sit and be a part of a big crowd and not worry about if anyone is looking at me." He checks over his shoulder as he says this last part, brow wrinkled. 

"Except for me," Johnny teases, putting an arm around Jaehyun's shoulders and pulling him close, feeling some of the tension drain out of him as he takes a half-step into Johnny's side. "I looked." 

"Yeah," Jaehyun agrees, and tentatively wraps an arm around Johnny's waist. "I guess you sort of did." 

* * *

Against what feels like better judgement, it becomes a thing. Jaehyun’s there all nights and most mornings, and Johnny starts getting used to waking up with Jaehyun’s arm over his chest or the sound of someone in the kitchen, programming the fridge to make coffee at a certain time or moving pots onto the stovetop. Jaehyun does _something_ during the day—Johnny doesn’t know what, but he sustains no more injuries. Eventually the bandage on his arm is thrown away and the bruise on his cheekbone fades. 

“Come by for dinner,” Johnny tells him one morning, a week from the Tuesday when he’d reappeared. Jaehyun still looks drawn and tired—he gets up so early, and Johnny doesn’t know if he has lunch. “Hisashi’s a really good cook, just like you. If I tell him, he’ll make extra rice.” 

“Are you sure?” Jaehyun asks. “I don’t want to inconvenience—” 

“You won’t,” Johnny assures him, and he means it. “Hisashi will love you. He acts really grumpy, but he’s got a habit of picking up strays.” Johnny puts a gentle hand on Jaehyun’s chest. “You already fit right in with Kiko and Doyoung. They like you a lot.” 

It’s true—both of them greet Jaehyun cheerfully when he shows up, usually close to midnight, dropping into a seat towards the end of the bar. They both heckle Johnny for spending too much time talking to him, but both of them are equally as guilty, stopping midway through tasks or losing track of time. Jaehyun is a good listener—and he doesn’t even seem to realize it. When Johnny had pointed it out to him, he’d just frowned, like what Johnny was saying didn’t make sense. 

"I just pay attention," he’d said. "All of your friends are interesting, so it's easy." 

"Yeah, Jaehyun, that's what being a good listener means," Johnny had replied. "You'd be surprised how terrible some people are at it." 

Now, Kiko jabbers away about her girlfriend, and Jaehyun crams rice in his mouth while he nods, like it’s the most interesting thing in the entire world. 

A couple of Argonites meander up to the bar. It’s only seven, which means the bar is relatively empty while everybody eats dinner. It’ll get busy here in an hour or so, but until then, conversation is muted, and the music is slower. “Hey, Johnny,” one of them says—Hendery, the guy who had his birthday a while ago. “Have you heard anything about Jaemin Na? The Cenzari kid?” 

“Donghyuck’s boyfriend,” the other one clarifies—Renjun, Johnny thinks. He’s also fairly regular here. 

“I thought your lot didn’t like the Cenzari,” Johnny says, “ _or_ the Neolites.” 

“Technically, we don’t,” Hendery says, “but we like Jaemin.” 

“I’m worried about him,” Renjun adds. “It’s been a week, and none of us have heard a single thing from him. No message, no call. I’ve made calls to all my Argon contacts, and nobody’s seen him around either.” 

“Fuck,” Johnny says, standing upright even as his stomach sinks. “Really? I was asking around last week too, because Donghyuck was worried. You still haven’t found him?” 

Renjun bites his lip. “No. And I really hate to ask for favors, but do you think you could get people to look for him? All the Cenzari allies are our enemies, and they won’t even come near us.” 

Jaehyun comes up to Johnny, his plate clear. The laughter fades from his face as he looks between the three of them, and he frowns. 

“Hey,” Johnny says, taking Jaehyun’s plate and setting it on the belt to the servo. “Did you like it?” 

“It was delicious,” Jaehyun says. “I was on my way to thank Hisashi, but you looked worried.” 

Renjun and Hendery are both eyeing Jaehyun with a fair amount of suspicion, so Johnny puts a hand on Jaehyun’s shoulder and turns back to face them. “This is Jaehyun,” Johnny says. “I’m sort of seeing him.” 

“Hi,” Jaehyun says. He’s _also_ eyeing the Argonites, but offers them a tentative smile. “Is someone missing?” 

“Maybe,” Renjun says, tilting his chin up defensively. “Why would you care?” 

“Because Johnny does,” Jaehyun says, like it’s obvious. “And because finding people is sort of my thing.” 

“You a bounty hunter?” Hendery asks, crossing his arms. 

Jaehyun’s expression is neutral, impossible to get a read on. “No.” 

Hendery’s clearly expecting Jaehyun to elaborate, but Jaehyun, as always, is not forthcoming. He sets his shoulders and meets Hendery’s gaze, unblinking and imposing. Eventually Hendery takes a half-step back, uncrossing his arms. 

“I can find him,” Jaehyun says. “If you want.” 

“What’s in it for you?” Renjun asks, not backing down. 

Johnny puts a hand on his back, and Jaehyun tenses for a moment before relaxing infinitesimally. “If you stop looking at me like that, I’ll do it for free,” he says.

Hendery nudges Renjun. “Johnny trusts him,” he mutters. 

Renjun looks at Johnny. “He’s not a bounty hunter?” 

“Jaemin doesn’t even have a bounty on his head,” Johnny says, “or I would’ve heard about it from Ten, or Lyric, or any of the other hunters that swing through here.” 

Renjun is still waiting. Johnny sighs. “Jaehyun’s not a bounty hunter,” he says. _Probably._

“Okay, fine,” Renjun relents, before pointing a finger at Jaehyun. “But if I find out that you’ve hurt him—” 

“Renjun, let’s get you another drink,” Johnny says, clapping his hands together. “Jaehyun’s gonna go help Kiko with the plates.” He knocks his hip against Jaehyun’s, nudging him to where Kiko is stacking dishes. 

Jaehyun catches Johnny’s drift and goes over to help her. Renjun plops down on a stool and puts his head in his hands. 

“You’re really worried, huh?” Johnny asks. He starts pouring vodka and bluerazzle syrup into a shaker. Renjun’s got a taste for bluerazzle spins, which are expensive because it uses real fruit, but Johnny doesn’t mind putting this one on the house. Renjun looks like he could use some cheering up. 

“He’s one of my best friends, believe it or not,” Renjun says. Johnny slides the glass towards him, and he picks it up and takes a sip. “Holy shit, this is really good. Thanks, Johnny.” 

“Do you really think your boyfriend will be able to find him?” Hendery asks. 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Johnny says. 

“Whatever,” Hendery replies. “Will he?” 

Johnny watches Kiko clap as Jaehyun picks up a massive stack of plates with practiced ease. “Yeah,” he says firmly. “He’ll find him.” 

He knows it in his gut, somehow. He doesn’t quite know _why_ he feels so sure. He just _does._ There’s an edge to Jaehyun that Johnny can’t see, but he knows it exists, hidden between all of Jaehyun’s secrets. 

Some of them crop up every now and then—like the fact that Jaehyun has a flyer’s license, a ridiculously high alcohol tolerance, and strange tattoo, a solid black band that wraps around just above his ankle.

Johnny really tries not to ask questions, but as time wears on, it gets harder and harder not to. Jaehyun comes to know more of Johnny’s friends, and people in the Andromeda start to recognize him. They call him Johnny’s boyfriend and clap him on the back and talk about soccer, which Jaehyun really likes—though he supports a team from a completely different planet in the system. He holds Johnny’s hand on the bus and laughs and jokes and kisses Johnny in the doorway as he’s about to go to work. 

And it starts to feel like—it starts to feel like an actual thing. Jaehyun still sleeps restlessly and gets up too early and acts strangely when people ask questions about his life, but he’s consistent. 

Johnny continues to be shouted at by all the people in the Andromeda, and he loves it more than ever because Jaehyun waits for him at the end of all his shifts. It’s nice, he has to admit, to go home to someone who doesn’t _need_ him like the people in the Andromeda do—a drink, _another_ drink, this person, that person, do you have this, do you know where that is, _another drink, Johnny, come on_. 

Jaehyun is none of that. Jaehyun just looks at Johnny like it’s just the two of them in the room. 

Physical affection still makes him jump, a little, but he’s a quick learner, opening easily under Johnny’s touch when they get back to his apartment. Jaehyun kisses under Johnny’s chin and down his throat, puts his hands under Johnny’s shirt, and Johnny feels _wanted._ With Jaehyun’s arms around him and Jaehyun’s mouth on his, Johnny forgets about the shadows, about the edges, about the scars with stories Jaehyun won’t tell. He forgets that dangerous people are always dangerous, even when their weapons are gone. 

For now, though, Jaehyun’s harness stays folded over the back of Johnny’s chair, and Johnny kisses him and thinks about tomorrow. 

* * *

On one of the last nice days of autumn, Johnny takes Jaehyun to his favorite park to have dinner. They take the bus two stops, and the crowded, neon-lit streets of the Avenue fall away to reveal narrow apartments, streets cluttered with mag-cars and bikes. 

“This is near where I got my first apartment,” Johnny says. “I used to come here every day.” He points to the hill that rises up from between clusters of tall pine trees. It’s raining slightly, and Jaehyun’s got his hood up. He’s still wearing the strange black jacket, though he’s got on a pair of Johnny’s jeans, rolled up a few times at the cuff because they’re slightly too long. Gone are the sleek, slim-fit dark clothes he’d shown up in. This is a relaxed version of him, gentler, a Jaehyun that sleeps well and eats well and sees all his friends. 

“Come on,” Johnny says, taking Jaehyun’s hand before he says something stupid, like, _I’m glad you’re not leaving_ or _I like you so much it hurts my chest._

It’s only been a couple weeks, and Johnny’s already sure of that much. 

“Where are we going?” 

“To the top of the hill,” Johnny says. “You can see the ocean from there.” 

They get to the top, panting a little, and Johnny rummages through the backpack Jaehyun’s wearing for a beer. They find an empty bench—there are a lot of people here, probably enjoying the fading fair weather before winter hits, relentless and icy—and sit down. Jaehyun draws one of his knees up and relaxes into Johnny’s side. The setting sun turns his eyelashes and eyes golden, and Johnny’s heart swells in his chest, making it hard to speak for a moment. 

“It’s pretty,” Jaehyun says, looking out over the ocean. The sky is doing its usual descent through shades of purple as the sun sinks towards the horizon. “So is the sky. I don’t think I ever noticed before.” 

“When they were setting up Port Ellis, one of its potential names was Sunset City,” Johnny says. “There’s something about the atmosphere that makes the sky turn all those crazy colors.” 

“I like Port Ellis better, though,” Jaehyun says. “Sunset City is sort of cheesy.” 

“Yeah, me too,” Johnny says. “It’s after Olivia Ellis, did you know? The famous terraformer. She did the whole planet of Eylo. They wanted to name Mecurty Lake after her too, but they picked her favorite Solar System planet instead.” 

“I did not know that,” Jaehyun says, looking mildly impressed. “I also didn’t think you were a history guy.” 

“I’m not,” Johnny says. “My sister is, though. She wants to be a planetary historian.” 

“That’s a thing?” Jaehyun asks. 

Johnny laughs. “I guess so. She says it is, at least.” 

The sun sinks lower in the sky. 

“Any news on Jaemin?” Johnny asks. “It’s been a couple days.” 

“I’ve got a couple leads,” Jaehyun says. 

“Really?” 

Jaehyun nods. “I reached out to a couple contacts I have here, and one of them turned up with some stuff. I’m going to meet with her tomorrow.” 

“Can I come?” 

“That’s a really bad idea,” Jaehyun says, smiling, but there’s no warmth in it. He’s dead serious.

Johnny sits up and eyes Jaehyun. “Why won’t you tell me what you do?” 

“I just can’t,” Jaehyun replies. Johnny can see him shutting off, shutting him out, and scrambles to get through to him. 

“At least tell me why you don’t sleep all the way through the night,” Johnny says. “You wake up before dawn.” 

“I just don’t sleep well.” 

“Jaehyun—” 

“Johnny, please,” Jaehyun says quietly, catching his hand. “Don’t.” 

Johnny looks between their interlaced fingers and Jaehyun’s face. He wants to know more about Jaehyun—the in-betweens aren’t enough anymore. He wants the secrets, too. He wants the _whys_ and the _hows._ Because a part of him _wants_ to love Jaehyun, and he can’t do that unless he knows about the shadows, too. 

But Jaehyun had disappeared without a trace last time, without warning, and had turned up two weeks later with different hair and an injury that spanned his entire arm. If he were to do that again, now—well, last time Johnny got out unscathed because it had only been two nights. 

He sighs deeply. If he has to choose between knowing and keeping, the answer is obvious. 

“Okay,” he says. “I won’t.” 

Jaehyun breathes out. “Thank you.” The look he gives Johnny is grateful, but also sad, deeply sad. Johnny’s not sure why, but he doesn’t like it. So he squeezes Jaehyun’s hand and jerks his chin at the sky. 

“Look,” he says. “The clouds are pink.” 

“They are,” Jaehyun says. It comes out a little strangled-sounding, and he clears his throat, turning his face away. Johnny lets him, if only so he doesn’t have to deal with the strange tightness in his chest, like some piece of him knows exactly what Jaehyun is sad about.

* * *

Jaehyun walks into the Andromeda the next night with a bloody nose. 

“Jesus Christ, Jaehyun,” Doyoung says, eyes wide. “What the fuck happened to you?” 

Johnny meets his eyes. _Did you get what you went for?_

Jaehyun nods slightly. 

“Are you alright?” Johnny asks, pressing his fingers to the side of Jaehyun’s face and turning it, looking for bruises. “Do you need ice?” 

“I found Jaemin Na,” he says to Johnny. “Call his faction.” 

“Okay, yes, but are you okay?” Johnny asks again. Jaehyun touches his nose, staring at the blood on his fingertips like he doesn’t recognize it. 

“It doesn’t hurt,” he says. “It’s not even bleeding anymore.” 

Renjun finally notices Jaehyun and shoves his way up to the bar, Hendery half a step behind him. “Did you find him?” 

“I did,” Jaehyun says. “He’s out front.” 

“He’s—what?” Renjun yelps, tripping over a stool in his rush towards the door, handscreen already out. 

“You could’ve mentioned that a little earlier,” Johnny says to Jaehyun, coming out from behind the bar. People are starting to rise in their seats, heads turning curiously to the commotion outside, but Johnny stands in the doorway before anybody can follow Renjun and go check. 

“This is Cenzari business,” Johnny informs them. “So unless you’re from that faction, please stay put.” 

“He’s out of the bar, though,” one man complains. “He’s fair game.” 

“Stay put,” Johnny tells him pleasantly. “I’ll be back in a second.” 

“Jaemin, oh my god, oh my god,” Renjun says behind him, his voice panicked. Johnny steps outside, shivering a little at the cold air, and Jaehyun closes the door behind them. 

Jaemin is barely conscious, wrapped in two coats that are far too big for him, leaning against the Andromeda. His face is a mess of bruises and cuts, one eye so swollen he can’t open it. His lips are cracked and his teeth are bloody, but they’re all intact through the smile he offers Johnny. 

“Hi,” he croaks. “Your boyfriend saved me.” 

“How?” Renjun demands. “Oh my god, Hendery, call Donghyuck, call the Cenzari—” 

“I don’t have any Cenzari numbers,” Hendery says, “and Donghyuck is already on his way.” 

“I’ve got Jungwoo’s number,” Johnny says, holding up his handscreen. “I’ll text him.” 

Donghyuck shows up five minutes later and bursts into tears at the sight of his boyfriend, pulling him into a hug and refusing to let go, even when the Cenzari show up in their sleek mag-cars. 

“I’m alright, I’m alright,” Jaemin says, even as he wobbles on his feet. “Okay, I’m a little tired and maybe a little hungry, too, but I’m in one piece. They even let me keep all my fingers.” He holds up his hands as best he can to demonstrate. “It’s all thanks to Jaehyun. He saved me.” 

Every set of eyes present swivel to Jaehyun, who’s standing partially behind Johnny. He fidgets under all the attention, looking incredibly uncomfortable. 

“You look familiar,” Jungwoo says. 

“He’s sort of a regular here,” Johnny offers, stepping in before Jaehyun can make a break for it. 

“He’s Johnny’s boyfriend,” Jaemin corrects. 

Johnny sighs, exasperated. “He’s not my—” 

“How did you find Jaemin?” Jungwoo asks, ignoring Johnny entirely, his eyes still fixed on Jaehyun. He looks friendly enough, but there’s something cautious in his expression. 

“You know,” Jaehyun says, waving a hand. “People know people who know people.” 

“What kind of person would you be, then?” Jungwoo asks. 

Jaehyun shrugs. “Depends.”

Jungwoo crosses his arms and gives him a long, appraising look before finally turning to Johnny. “You’re dating this guy?” 

“Um,” Johnny says. “Yes?” 

“What’s his job?” 

“Cooking breakfast,” Jaehyun says, and Johnny has to bite back a smile at the glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Johnny pays for all the groceries.” 

“What,” Jungwoo says, clearly confused with the direction the conversation has taken. “You’re a chef?” 

“Personal chef,” Johnny corrects, catching on. “Eggs are his specialty.” 

“How do you even have connections, then?” Jungwoo asks. 

Renjun smacks his forehead. “Jungwoo, they’re messing with you.” 

“Oh,” Jungwoo says, frowning. “So you’re not a chef?” 

“Only when I’m cooking,” Jaehyun says, and Johnny hastily turns a laugh into a cough. Renjun gives him an incredibly unamused look as Jungwoo’s frown deepens. He’s not following in the slightest. Even Donghyuck is laughing a bit, his face tear-stained and puffy. 

“Otherwise, I’m just a person who knows other people,” Jaehyun says. He nods at Jaemin, and turns to Johnny. “Could I actually have some ice for my nose?”

“Uh, yeah,” Johnny says, through barely-restrained laughter. “There’s a medkit in the storage room.” 

“I’m gonna be looking into you!” Jungwoo shouts as they open the door, the warm air rushing out to greet them. 

“You probably won’t find anything,” Jaehyun tells him sincerely, “but I welcome you to try. _Jaehyun personal chef_ will probably do the trick.” 

“I thought you just said—” 

“Jungwoo, oh my god,” Jaemin says, cracking up, and the door swings shut. 

“I think he’s gonna be fine,” Johnny says once they’re in the storage room. He wraps an ice pack from the first aid kit in a towel and hands it to Jaehyun. “How’s your nose?” 

“Hurts a bit,” Jaehyun says. “I think the adrenaline wore off.” 

“Was it your contact that found him?” 

Jaehyun nods. “She knew about the moles in the Cenzari, and had a guess that Jaemin would probably go after them. One of them was his uncle.” 

“Oh, damn,” Johnny says, sitting down across from him. He knows nothing about faction politics, and has no desire to get involved, but Jaemin is his friend. “He must feel like shit.” 

“He’ll pull through,” Jaehyun says confidently. “He was laughing at them when I got there. They’d hit him, and he’d just laugh harder.” He makes a face. “Honestly, it was sort of terrifying.” 

“Why didn’t you ask for help?” Johnny says. “Let the Cenzari know? Or the enforcement?” 

“If I knew that Jaemin was gonna be there, I would’ve,” Jaehyun says, but Johnny isn’t sure he believes him. It’s hard to believe that Jaehyun would walk into a situation without knowing exactly what he was getting into. He’s not the reckless type—he’s enthusiastic, sure, but he’s measured. Precise. 

“What did you do with the guys? How many did you say there were?” 

“Not too many,” Jaehyun says, which is a non-answer if Johnny’s ever heard one. “We left them there, tied up. The Cenzari will probably round them up. My priority was making sure Jaemin didn’t die from blunt force trauma. They hit him a lot.” 

“I could tell,” Johnny says. “His face looked awful.” 

They lapse into silence for a moment. Jaehyun shifts the ice on his nose and winces. 

“I’m glad he’s okay, at least,” Johnny says. “You did a really nice thing.” 

“And now the Cenzari owe me,” Jaehyun adds. “Part of the reason I didn’t accept any money from Renjun.” 

“What are you gonna do with a favor from a system faction?” Johnny asks, and Jaehyun shrugs. 

“Favors are good to have,” he says. “Just in case.” He switches the hand that’s holding the ice and unzips his coat, only to reveal that his shirt is also covered in blood. There’s a lot of it, but no visible sign of injury—which means it belongs to the people Jaehyun fought when he rescued Jaemin. 

There’s so much. The harness is still sitting in Johnny’s apartment, too. Which means—

Sure enough, Jaehyun’s knuckles are a little bruised, red around the joints. 

He’d fought them bare-handed. However many there were, he’d fought and beaten them on his own, with no weapons, and then had rescued Jaemin. All in the span of a couple hours. 

The realization stuns Johnny, like he’d been slapped. 

Jaehyun watches him warily, one hand still holding the ice to his face. There’s a flicker of that same sadness from the park, the deep one, the unknowable one. 

_Don’t ask,_ Jaehyun’s face says. _Please don’t ask._

Johnny’s gut twists, and a lump rises in his throat. How is he supposed to ignore the fact that violence seems to haunt Jaehyun wherever he goes, that the shadows that follow him are drenched in blood? 

_I can’t,_ one part of him says. 

_You have to try,_ the other part, the part that likes feeling wanted, argues. 

“Here,” Johnny says at last, reaching behind him where a box of shirts sit, all of them black, with the bar’s logo on the front. “Put this on.” 

Jaehyun puts the shirt on. It’s a little tight across the shoulders, but it’s a lot better than the bloodstained one. Johnny watches as he scrubs the blood from his arms and neck until his skin is clean again. 

They sit facing each other for a moment longer. Like this, in his jeans and sneakers and slightly-too-small t-shirt, it’s hard to believe Jaehyun could be covered in someone else’s blood. There’s not a scratch on him, save for the bloody nose and the bruised knuckles. 

That worries him. The fact that he can compartmentalize so easily even though the shadows grow, Jaehyun’s secrets doing their best to press space between them. 

“C’mon,” Johnny says, getting to his feet and patting Jaehyun on the knee. “If you’re gonna wear the shirt, you might as well help out.” 

Jaehyun takes Johnny’s hand and stands, and tosses his bloody shirt in the garbage can on the way out. 

Johnny turns off the lights behind them, and tries very, very hard not to think about it. 

* * *

Doyoung invites both of them out on Friday evening, and Jaehyun spends the entire afternoon wheedling Johnny to try to get him to say yes. 

“Ten put you up to this, didn’t he,” Johnny says tiredly. “You don’t even like clubs, Jaehyun.” 

“Please,” Jaehyun says again, quiet. “I want you to come.” 

_That’s_ unfair. It’s like Jaehyun can see directly into Johnny’s head, can sense the particular weak spot he has for Jaehyun and feeling _wanted._

“Okay, alright,” Johnny relents, and is rewarded with a smile, both of Jaehyun’s cheeks dimpling. “Yeah, I’ll go. But only if you wear a different jacket.” 

“Deal,” Jaehyun says. “I’ll see you tonight, then?” 

“Yeah, tonight—” Johnny starts.

“Sounds good,” Jaehyun interrupts, leaning forward and kissing Johnny briefly. Then he’s gone, the door swinging shut behind him. Johnny touches his mouth and stares at the door, wondering what the hell just happened. 

“Was that Jaehyun?” Jeno asks, coming out from the back of the shop. “That was fast.” 

“That was _weird,_ is what that was,” Johnny says, frowning. “He never does that.” 

“Maybe he’s planning a surprise,” Jeno suggests. “Mark gets weird when he’s trying to keep a secret.” 

Something alike to dread crawls up Johnny’s throat, unpleasant and heavy. _Keep a secret._

The bloody shirt flashes to the front of his mind again, followed by Petir’s prone form in the alleyway. 

_Stop,_ he tells himself firmly. _Thinking about it makes it worse._

It doesn’t work half as well as it used to, not since Jaehyun has grown more restless at night, slipping out of bed well before dawn, leaving the bed cold next to Johnny when he wakes up. He’s evasive as ever, and sometimes doesn’t show up to the bar until closing, out-of-breath, his jacket zipped to his chin. 

The harness is still over the back of the chair. It’s the first thing Johnny sees in the morning when he wakes, because Jaehyun is rarely asleep next to him anymore. 

Johnny wants him to stay more than anything. He’d like to kiss Jaehyun all over and then lie in the darkness and whisper stories to him until he’s too tired to think. He wants the peace from the beginning—but he also wants answers. 

How bad can it be, really? Nobody’s hands are really clean. Johnny serves drinks to criminals and makes peace between gangs. He’s made friends with smugglers and bounty hunters, arms dealers, pod racers, illegal betters. Jaehyun is just another good person doing bad things to survive. 

Right?

* * *

The bad feeling in his gut only grows as he gets ready to go out, changing his shirt and putting on a jacket. It’s cold out, but he takes a shot just as the cab Doyoung is in pulls up in front of his apartment, which warms him slightly. 

“Nice shirt,” Doyoung says as he climbs in. “Is Jaehyun not with you?” 

Johnny checks his handscreen. “No, he said he’d meet us there.” 

“I can’t believe you’re actually coming out with us,” Doyoung says, whacking Johnny on the shoulder. “Dating is good for you. Ten and I were actually talking about it—you’ve looked so much happier, lately. Well-rested. Less like life is slowly sucking your soul out of your nose.” 

Johnny tries for a smile that mirrors Doyoung’s excitement. “I’m really lucky to have met Jaehyun,” he says, but there must be something off about his tone because Doyoung’s eyes narrow. 

“Okay, what’s wrong,” Doyoung says. “And don’t say nothing, because you’re a terrible liar.” 

Johnny stews for a minute, debating on whether or not he should tell Doyoung. It feels like _losing,_ almost—like he’s letting his head get the best of him, when he should be listening to his heart. 

“Jaehyun’s just being a little weird,” Johnny says. “But I’m afraid I’m imagining it.” 

“Have you asked him?” 

_Yes, and he hasn’t said anything,_ Johnny thinks, _as usual._

_I think he’s in trouble, Doyoung. I think something is going wrong._

_What’s going wrong? What stains his hands?_

“No,” Johnny says. “Should I?” 

Doyoung gives Johnny an exasperated look. “Yes, obviously. Oh, look, there’s Ten and Taeyong.” 

“We’re already here?” Johnny asks, looking out the window. The landscape has entirely changed, from narrow apartments to sleek, dark buildings with tinted windows. The dawnclub they’re pulling up to is no different, made of black stone that seems to shimmer faintly, its elegant neon sign twisting and shifting, making it impossible to read. 

“I regret this already,” Johnny says, mostly to himself, and Doyoung gives him a dirty look. 

Ten and Taeyong, who are dressed in their classic sheer-shirt gaudy jacket combo. Ten gives him a smile that’s slightly too sharp. Taeyong is distinctly less scary, and tells Johnny he’s glad to see him. 

“Who are we waiting for?” Doyoung asks. “Jaehyun, still?” 

“There he is,” Taeyong says, pointing. They all turn to look, and Johnny’s stomach does a little flip at the sight of him, his dark hair pushed away from his face, wearing a deep red jacket and a black shirt that shimmers in the same way the club does. His face lights up at the sight of Johnny, who immediately feels guilty for every single doubt or question he’d had over the span of the day. He _knows_ Jaehyun, of course he does—the self-conscious way he stands with his hands in his pockets, the way his voice sounds when he laughs. What he orders at the bar, shouting over the music, and the way his eyes stay on Johnny’s face when he talks. 

Johnny’s not one for dancing, but all the rest of his friends are, so he gets dragged away from their VIP booth—Johnny has no idea what Ten did to get _that_ sort of privilege—and into the mass of bodies. 

“You look really good!” he shouts into Jaehyun’s ear. 

A corner of Jaehyun’s mouth lifts. “You do too,” he says. He leans forward, but there’s a hand on his arm, a hand that doesn’t belong. 

“It _is_ you.” 

Jaehyun immediately steps back. There are two people standing there, a man and a woman, looking at Jaehyun with a fair amount of surprise on their faces.

“Meridia and Kelson,” Jaehyun says smoothly. “I didn’t think you guys were a fan of clubs.” 

Johnny takes her in. She’s dressed in a gauzy red top, her hair pulled tightly away from her face. Her smile comes nowhere near to reaching her eyes, and her partner—Kelson—has no expression at all, like he’s made out of stone. 

“I didn’t think you were either,” Meridia says. “I’m just surprised—I thought you left Port Ellis a month ago.” She glances over at Johnny, and Jaehyun follows her gaze, angling his body a little so Johnny is standing behind him. “Who’s this?”

“Nobody,” Jaehyun says, still calm and unmoving. Johnny can’t read the expression on his face, but the man doesn’t like it, bristling next to his partner. 

“Interesting,” she says, mouth curling at the corner. “I never would’ve struck you for the type.” 

“Careful,” Jaehyun says, and there’s a note of warning in his voice. Around them, people dance on, completely unaware to whatever tension is slowly unfolding. “Watch what you say next.” He tilts his head at Kelson, and Meridia’s face pales slightly. 

Johnny has no idea what’s happening. It’s filtering through the fine layer of alcohol over his brain, making it hard to process, and the music and flashing lights do not help. 

Meridia is leaning in, her mouth moving, eyes glittering maliciously. Jaehyun goes very, very still, and Johnny steps forward, not liking the look on _either_ of their faces, and the air between them, churning like they might fight. 

She pats Jaehyun on the shoulder and pulls away at the last moment. “Just remember that, alright?” She gives Johnny a look that makes him shift uncomfortably. “Hopefully we’ll see you around.” 

Then she and her silent partner vanish back into the crowd, and Johnny grabs Jaehyun’s hand. 

“Who were they?” Johnny asks. Jaehyun is rooted to the spot, jaw tight. “Jaehyun?” 

“Old friends,” Jaehyun replies, distant. He shakes his head and turns to Johnny. “Unimportant.” 

“It really didn’t—” Johnny starts, interrupted when Jaehyun puts his hands on Johnny’s waist and pulls him close. 

“Let’s just forget about it,” Jaehyun says, his breath warm against Johnny’s neck, and then closes the space between them. 

At the first touch of Jaehyun’s mouth, Johnny startles back. “There are so many people, Jae, and I don’t think—” 

“They’re not paying attention,” Jaehyun says. 

“Okay,” Johnny replies, and it’s easy to get lost in the way Jaehyun kisses him—slow, long, like he’s trying to make a single moment last forever. 

Johnny’s stomach flips again, but it’s not pleasant this time. 

Jaehyun’s tongue brushes his, though, and his thoughts scatter like leaves, Jaehyun’s hand hot through the thin layer of his shirt, Jaehyun’s hips against his, Jaehyun breathing against his mouth, _I want—I want._

Jaehyun’s teeth scrape Johnny’s bottom lip, and he has to bite back the sound that rises quickfire-hot in his chest. 

“Jaehyun,” Johnny says, trying to rearrange the inside of his head, “I need to t—” 

“Johnny!” Ten shouts from behind him. “Come do shots!” 

Johnny turns to Jaehyun, but Ten hauls him back out of the crowd, where all four of them sling back vodka. Then it’s back to the dance floor until Johnny loses track of Jaehyun, finally excusing himself to the bathroom. His mouth is still tingling a little from the way Jaehyun had kissed him from before. 

Johnny braces his hands on the edge of the sink and looks himself in the eye. “Tell him,” he says to himself. “You have to tell him. It’ll only get worse if you don’t.” 

The bloody shirt. Petir. That woman, Meridia, and the way she seemed to _know_ Jaehyun. 

Through the faint haze of alcohol, it all makes a little less sense than it did early. The connection isn’t as clear—Johnny’s not sure he could put it into words—but there’s that feeling in his gut, the tickle in the back of his mind, that won’t let him rest easy until he talks to Jaehyun. 

Johnny finds him at their booth, talking with Doyoung. There’s a faint flush on his cheeks, but his eyes are clear and his hands are steady. Johnny comes to stand next to him, and Jaehyun winds an arm around his waist, easy as breathing, a far cry from the hesitant hand on his hip a month ago. The fit of his hand is achingly familiar, and Johnny squeezes his eyes shut as a lump rises in his throat, suddenly overwhelmed. 

_I can’t lose this,_ he thinks. _I can’t lose him. I_ won’t _lose him._

“Jaehyun, I gotta talk to you about something,” he says before he can lose the courage. Jaehyun looks up at him, his face cracked open and easy to read for once. Affection, and that strange, impossible sadness. Like he knows. Like he knows _Johnny_ knows. 

“I think we’re gonna head out, Doyoung,” Jaehyun says, getting to his feet. “It’s kind of late.” 

It’s cold outside, and Johnny shivers, zipping up his jacket and shifting from foot-to-foot. “Can you get a—” 

“There you are.” 

Johnny and Jaehyun turn at the same time to see the woman from earlier and her massive partner emerge from the shadows like ghosts. Jaehyun tenses and steps in front of Johnny in one smooth motion. 

“Meridia,” he says, his jaw clenched. “I thought I made myself pretty clear in the club.” 

“Yeah, but we wanted to check on you,” Meridia says snidely. “Make sure you didn’t lose your boyfriend in there.” 

She takes a step forward. Jaehyun doesn’t budge, holding fast to Johnny even as he tugs on Jaehyun’s wrist, heart pounding. 

“Jaehyun,” he says urgently. “Jaehyun, who is she? What’s going on?” 

Meridia’s eyes go wide with delight. “ _Jaehyun?_ Is _that_ what they’re calling you now? And you haven’t told him?” 

Jaehyun freezes, his hand still locked tight around Johnny’s wrist. “Meridia,” he says, dangerous.

“Jaehyun,” Johnny says, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “Please tell me what she’s talking about.”

Jaehyun doesn’t turn around. Jaehyun doesn’t even _look_ at him. 

“Shall I tell him, then?” Meridia asks brightly. “All of your secrets? Should I start with your name? How we call you—” 

Before she can finish her sentence, faster than lightning, Jaehyun lunges. Johnny goes stumbling back, knocked-off balance, as Jaehyun swings at Meridia. She blocks, and Kelson, her partner, rushes in, faster than Johnny would’ve guessed. He grabs Jaehyun by his nice jacket and throws him off of Meridia, sending him sprawling. 

“Jaehyun!” Johnny shouts. “Holy f—” 

“Get back,” Jaehyun says, holding out a hand. His jaw is scratched from where he hit the pavement. “You need to g—look out!” 

Johnny turns just in time to see Meridia bearing down on him. He ducks her fist just in time, more luck than anything, and there’s a hissing noise a beat later. Meridia crumples to the ground, her body convulsing, a smoking hole in the sleeve of her jacket. Johnny looks behind him—Jaehyun is holding his pistol, but Meridia is still breathing, so he must’ve just stunned her. 

Johnny’s mind feels like it’s several ages behind his body, because all he can do is stare at Meridia, at the familiar black ink wrapped around her bicep like a band, at the hole in her jacket, at her face, which had lit up with recognition when she’d seen Jaehyun. 

Jaehyun, who’s currently fighting off Meridia’s partner. Kelson moves with terrifying precision, but Jaehyun is faster, more graceful—more furious. Jaehyun throws an elbow into Kelson’s side, ducks around him, and jabs his hand hard against Kelson’s throat, just below his jaw. Kelson’s eyes roll back in his head, and Jaehyun kicks him in the temple on the way down, knocking him out cold. 

There’s a second where Johnny watches Jaehyun’s chest heave, his breath clouding in the night air. He still looks incredible—maybe even better now that his hair is disheveled, his shirt hanging open where Meridia had torn a button off. 

And then the rest of it catches up to him. The people lying on the ground. Jaehyun’s bruised knuckles. The way they’d _known_ , the way they’d called to him. 

“Jaehyun,” Johnny says cautiously, taking a step towards him. “Are you alright?” 

Jaehyun flexes his fingers, stretching them out. He still doesn’t look at Johnny. “I’m fine. We should get out of here before they wake up.” 

Every muscle in his body sings with tension, but he lets Johnny put an arm around him and call a cab back to Johnny’s apartment. Johnny chokes on his questions and breathes through his nose, Jaehyun’s cologne mixing faintly with the smell of the alley, blood and smoke. But he waits. He knows they’re reaching their last seconds of peace. 

Jaehyun knows the door code, letting them both into the fuzzy darkness. Neither of them bother with the lights. They both kick off their shoes, silence still blanketing them. In the dimness, all Johnny can see is Jaehyun’s eyes, reflecting the light from the streetlamps outside. 

“So,” Jaehyun says at last. He’s down to just the shimmery shirt, still opened a couple buttons down. Johnny’s eyes flit over the muscles in his chest, and up over his collarbone, where he knows the scar from the vapo-sword is—where someone had tried to kill Jaehyun, once. Johnny can believe that, now, based on what he’d just seen. 

“So,” he says. “I think I have to ask my questions now.” 

Jaehyun doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t break eye contact either. He just stands there, waiting. 

Johnny opens his mouth. The question is right there, stuck in his throat. Jaehyun takes a careful step forward and puts a hand on the side of Johnny’s face. 

“I’m sorry,” Jaehyun says quietly. “I feel like—” 

Johnny’s chest contracts suddenly, painfully, and he leans forward to kiss Jaehyun hard before he can finish the sentence. It’s so hard to be angry at him, even with all the secrets, even with all the shadows, because some part of him believes in Jaehyun’s goodness. Not his innocence, not anymore—but in the quality of his heart. The way he looks at Johnny. 

“After,” he manages. “You can tell me what you were gonna say afterwards.” 

“Okay,” Jaehyun says, letting Johnny pull him closer. “Alright.” 

He kisses Johnny like he did in the club, only, now there’s nobody watching. It’s hungry, desperate, and yearning all at once, the unknown sadness pinching under the heat that sparks in his belly, shivering up his spine. Jaehyun pulls Johnny’s shirt out from his pants, his tongue in Johnny’s mouth, walking them backwards towards the bedroom. 

“Who were those people?” Johnny pants as Jaehyun kisses down his neck, more teeth than anything. 

“Coworkers,” Jaehyun says, breath hot against Johnny’s skin. “People that want to hurt you.” His fingers on Johnny’s waist are like brands, and he mouths at the spot below the hollow of Johnny’s throat, stopping just when Johnny starts to squirm. 

“Ticklish,” Johnny breathes. “Sorry.” 

Jaehyun leans back, halfway in Johnny’s lap. His eyes are liquid dark, pupils blown wide, his lips red. Johnny puts a hand on his hip, right above the red scar there, and thinks about how much Jaehyun is already ruined, in ways that Johnny isn’t allowed to see. 

“Why won’t you tell me?” Johnny asks. 

Jaehyun leans back down and kisses him instead of answering, rolling his hips against Johnny’s in a way that makes it hard to focus, hard to remember anything besides every point of contact between them, the way Jaehyun is hard against his thigh, the way he’s flushed from his ears to his chest, making all of his scars stand out against his skin. Johnny glances down at black band of ink around Jaehyun’s ankle, and sure enough, it matches Meridia’s. 

“What about the tattoo?” Johnny tries, but Jaehyun shakes his head. 

“It’s dangerous,” Jaehyun murmurs, and he does something with his fingers that makes Johnny forget what question Jaehyun is even answering. “I don’t want to lose you.” 

“Then stay,” Johnny says, breathless, but Jaehyun only gives him a sad look and presses his mouth to Johnny’s throat. 

It doesn’t take very long, after that. Jaehyun is a quick learner and he knows Johnny’s body, now, where to press and how fast to go, when to pull away and touch his face, how to absorb the shudders, the sounds, the way he says Jaehyun’s name because he can’t help it and hasn’t ever been able to help it. He’d been halfway to forgiving Jaehyun the second they’d gotten in the taxi, because Jaehyun’s hands had been shaking as he’d checked Johnny over for injuries. And Johnny had let him, because despite the frozen eastern lakes, and despite the blood, and despite the bodies—three, now, that Jaehyun has left behind casually, walking away without even looking over his shoulder—the part that wants to love Jaehyun is infinitely louder than any other voice in his head.

* * *

Afterwards, Jaehyun wraps his arms around Johnny, holding him tightly. “You’re not going anywhere,” Johnny says, a promise for both of them. 

Jaehyun makes a sound of agreement. Johnny runs a hand over his ribs, over a couple criss-crossed scars, raised and thin and white. “What are these from?” 

“I don’t remember,” Jaehyun says, and Johnny can tell it’s the truth from the way his voice hitches. “I don’t remember how I got a lot of them. I was really young.” 

“When you started to learn to cook from the cafeteria ladies?” Johnny asks. Jaehyun’s heartbeat thrums steadily against his cheek, gently lulling him away from consciousness, away from the ominous feeling that builds in his stomach. It’s hard to think like this, so warm and content. 

“Yeah,” Jaehyun says. “I was nine.” 

“That’s pretty young,” Johnny agrees, yawning widely. “I forgot what I was going to ask you.” 

Jaehyun’s hand is gentle in his hair. “No worries,” he says. “You can just ask me in the morning.” 

“What were you going to tell me?” Johnny asks, eyes drifting closed. “You said, ‘sorry’, and then something else, and then I said you should tell me afterwards.” 

“Oh,” Jaehyun says. There’s a long, weighty pause. “I forgot too.” 

“That’s okay,” Johnny mumbles, already half-asleep. “You can just tell me in the morning.” 

* * *

Johnny wakes up a couple hours later to the sunlight on his face. He rolls over, only to discover that the spot next to him is empty and cold. Jaehyun must’ve gotten up a while ago.

“Jaehyun,” Johnny groans, eyes still closed. 

There’s no response, and Johnny sits up, confused and disoriented, taking a minute to adjust to the faint throbbing in his head. He checks his handscreen—a couple messages from Doyoung, and one from Jeno about work.

“Jaehyun!” Johnny tries again, pushing back the covers and sliding to the edge of the mattress. The dread is back, clawing at him, twisting his stomach and pushing at the backs of his eyes. 

The kitchen is empty when he gets to it, the dishes put away, the refrigerator still half-stocked. Johnny quickly types out a _hey where are you_? to Jaehyun and sends it off. 

A second later, there’s a ding, and Johnny looks back down, relieved, only to see an error bubble: 

_Message not delivered. Number does not exist._

Something inside of him starts to freeze over. 

“No, no, no,” he whispers hoarsely. He hits the call button next to Jaehyun’s name, and the line is immediately picked up— 

“Hello?” Johnny says desperately. “Jaehyun? Are you—” 

“ _The number you are trying to reach is currently not in service,”_ a voice informs him. “ _Please double-check and try again.”_

“Jaehyun!” Johnny shouts again, but it’s no use—he’s alone. 

He turns, his heart in his mouth, feeling like he’d just been sucker-punched. The bedsheets are still rumpled, the pillow on Jaehyun’s side still creased where he’d slept, with Johnny’s cheek against his chest. 

The worst part is the desk, though.The harness over the back of the chair—the two pistols, and the knife—is gone. 

Johnny feels like he’s going to be sick. He catches himself on the doorway before his knees can give out, feeling like he’s being torn apart, bit by bit. 

“Fuck,” he says to the empty apartment, the empty bed, the empty chair. 

And the frozen part of him shatters. 

* * *

He cries. 

He _sobs._

It’s like a hole has opened up right behind his ribs, aching, raw at the edges, swallowing his heart and his lungs and all of his breath. He cries until he’s numb, and then falls asleep on his couch. Doyoung shows up at sunset, banging aggressively on Johnny’s door, ready to reprimand him until he sees Johnny’s face. 

“Oh no,” Doyoung says, covering his mouth. “Johnny—oh, no. When did he—do you know _why?_ ” 

Johnny’s chest seizes painfully, the hole gaping wider. “No,” he says. “What do you think I did—” 

“Nothing,” Doyoung interrupts firmly. “You didn’t do _anything._ ” 

But it’s too late—Johnny’s mind has already taken a dive into the deep end, walking him through every single thing he’d done over the span of the last month that could’ve driven Jaehyun away. 

Had he asked too many questions? Was he too pushy? Did he say too much or not enough? 

Maybe Jaehyun never wanted to be loved—maybe he never wanted to stay. Maybe it was just a stopover. 

And now—and now Johnny will never know. And it hurts, _god,_ does it hurt. 

“What time is it?” Johnny asks, desperate to distract himself, and Doyoung frowns. 

“You’re not thinking of coming in, right?” Doyoung says, crossing his arms. “You look like hell, Johnny. Nobody will blame you if you take a night off.” 

“If I think about it, it’ll be worse,” Johnny says. He clears his throat and tries for something slightly more optimistic, but the words feel like they’re glued against his throat. “I have to do _something,_ Doyoung.” 

“And that is give yourself a break,” Doyoung insists. “Johnny, please, just stay home for tonight, okay? Order something, watch a movie, call your mom,” he says. “I’ll be back in a little bit, okay?” 

Johnny manages a nod. Another wave of tears threatens to overtake him again as Doyoung leans forward to hug him, his arms tight around Johnny’s middle. 

“Be kind to yourself,” Doyoung says. “It wasn’t your fault.” 

“It doesn’t even matter,” Johnny replies, pulling away from Doyoung, barely able to stand the kindness, the comfort. “He’s still gone.” 

“Johnny—” 

“You should get to work,” Johnny says, opening the front door again. “I’ll see you later.” 

“Get some rest,” Doyoung says, and Johnny offers what he hopes is an optimistic smile. Then the door closes and he’s alone again, any spark of life that Doyoung had brought with him slowly fading from him. He collapses onto his couch, suddenly exhausted. 

_You can ask me in the morning,_ Jaehyun had said, and Johnny hadn’t even realized he’d lied. 

What else had he said and not meant? _I like you a lot, you look good, I want to see you tomorrow?_

His chest seizes again, and he puts his head back against the armrest, remembering the look on Jaehyun’s face, that strange sadness. Jaehyun had known, Johnny thinks, that he was going to leave. All the way from the time in the park, and before, lying on this very couch watching soccer or a movie, Jaehyun’s head on his thigh. Maybe he’d known from the minute they’d met for the second time, their eyes meeting from opposite sides of the bar. 

Why, then, try at all? Why promise to stay, when Jaehyun had _known_ he was going to leave? Had _planned_ on it? 

The more questions he asks, the worse he feels. There are no answers here in this empty apartment—just the ragged sound of his breath. Johnny presses his eyes closed, too tired to cry anymore, his throat sore and his eyes swollen. 

No, there’s nothing left to do, nowhere left to go. Nobody left to ask. All he can do now is lie here, trying not to choke on the pieces of his broken heart. 

* * *

Once the icy shock passes and thaws, the pain of heartbreak sets in. It fills the dark spaces around his heart and between his ribs, making every breath hurt a little bit. He misses Jaehyun like a physical ache, made even worse by the fact that he’d left nothing behind. Even the t-shirts he’d borrowed had been returned, folded at the bottom of Johnny’s closet like they’d never been touched in the first place. 

He does try, though. He wakes up on the couch because the bed hurts, and the empty chair hurts, and coaxes breakfast into his body, pulls on clean clothes, makes a half-attempt to straighten his hair. Winter is creeping over Port Ellis, and the chill makes it harder, but he owes it to himself and to all his friends to at least _try._

It’s just nearly impossible to process. The lack of explanation and the questions haunt him like the blood on Jaehyun’s shirt, on his face, on his hands. Meridia’s face in the club. He turns over hypotheticals late at night until they’re worn smooth on all sides, but can’t come up with an explanation. Jaehyun hadn’t explicitly planned it, but he’d _known_ —and that’s what confuses him, hurts him most of all. If it had been dangerous, if it’d been impossible, then why’d he even show up in the first place? 

It hurts to try to rationalize that, too. Every solution he’s come up with makes him feel small, replaceable, unimportant—makes him doubt every real thing he’d thought he’d felt. 

When he tells this to Doyoung and Kiko during a lull, they both shake their heads. 

“No _way_ ,” Kiko says. “He was so into you, Johnny. He looked at you like you were the center of the universe.” 

“Gross, Kiko,” Doyoung says, making a face. “That’s a bit dramatic.” 

Kiko whacks him with a towel. “But it’s _true._ He did.” 

“Then _why?_ ” Johnny asks desperately. “Why did he just _go?_ ” 

Kiko and Doyoung exchange a look, and Kiko shrugs hopelessly. “I don’t know,” she says. “People do fucked-up things without any explanation.” 

The door opens, letting in a rush of cold air, and the bar fills with chatter as Donghyuck, Jaemin and Renjun enter, brushing snow off their jackets and hats. The first of the personal heaters have started to emerge, tiny blinking devices that sit right in the center of people’s chests. The ocean has turned steely grey, and the sun rises quickly and sets just as fast, its warmth weak and short-lasting. The lights come on so early these days, turning late afternoon on the Avenue into a preternatural nighttime. 

“What sucks is that I’m still worried about him,” Johnny says. “That night in the club—I mean, it wasn’t good.” 

“Of course you still care,” Doyoung says gently. “That’s your whole sense of self.” 

Johnny sighs. “I wish it wasn’t.” There’s a jingle from the door, and Johnny re-arranges his face as best he can as Jaemin, Donghyuck and Renjun walk in. “Hey, you three, how’s it going?” 

Donghyuck lets go of Jaemin’s hand so he can wave. “Hi, Johnny. Doing alright?” The three of them sit down at the bar next to Johnny. 

“I’m alive,” Johnny says, giving him a tired thumbs-up. “Better than the alternative?” 

“What happened?” Renjun asks. 

“I got dumped,” Johnny says, a gross oversimplification. “Really badly.” 

“Oh,” Renjun says, frowning. “I’m sorry, Johnny.” 

Kiko pats Johnny on the shoulder and gets to her feet. “I’m gonna go see if those guys over there need a refill. Doyoung, you got the bar?” 

“Yep,” Doyoung says. “Do you want anything?” he asks Donghyuck, Jaemin and Renjun. They place orders for drinks, and Jaemin scoots his stool a little closer. 

“Hi,” Jaemin says. “I’m sorry about Jaehyun.” 

“I’m trying not to think about it,” Johnny says, looking down at his hands, “so of course, it’s all that’s on my mind.” 

Jaemin takes a sip of his drink, and then says, thoughtfully, “Did he ever tell you how he saved me?” 

Johnny sits up. “No. He didn’t say anything. Just that there were some guys, and he took them out. I mean, I know he’s good at fighting, but—it never made any sense.” 

“It was more than just _good_ ,” Jaemin says, shifting in his seat. “It was—it was _efficient._ Ruthless, almost. He never even made a face. He just sort of took them out.” Jaemin makes a karate-chopping motion to demonstrate. “And I knew all of those people. They weren’t push-overs. Johnny, it was _insane._ They couldn’t even touch him. He walked out without a scratch.” 

“What about the bloody nose?” Johnny asks. He’d guessed that Jaehyun had done it all himself—there’s been _so much_ blood on him, and a heavy, haunted look that had pinched the corners of his eyes. 

Jaemin bites his lip. “He didn’t want me to tell you this, but…I gave it to him. On purpose. He said—he said you’d be able to tell if he walked out without an injury.” 

Johnny sits back in his chair. He’s not as surprised as he thought he’d be—not after everything that’s happened. After Jaehyun up and vanished out of his life like he’d never existed in the first place, and Johnny is left with nothing but a hundred bitter _why_ s that will never be answered. 

“He was pretty hard to read,” Jaemin says, apologetic. “I’m sure you know that.” 

Johnny doesn’t have the energy to do anything except nod. 

“I don’t know if it’ll make you feel better,” Jaemin continues, “but he always looked at you like you were worth it. That, at least, was real.” 

It’s a nice sentiment. But one real thing in the face of a hundred other false ones is like trying to find a matchstick flame in a rainstorm. And it certainly doesn’t change the truth: that Jaehyun is dangerous, and he’s gone, and there will be no answers for Johnny Seo.

* * *

But time passes, because it must, and Johnny starts to put himself back together. He starts sleeping in his bed again, and his energy returns bit-by-bit. People clap him on the back and say, _I was worried_ or _I missed that smile of yours_ or _good to have you back._ Rooms still ring a little too empty sometimes, and Johnny has yet to readjust to being totally alone, back to the routine he’d established before Jaehyun had shown up with a sweet lie and a bitter promise and had kissed Johnny so deeply he’d forgotten to think. 

His friends are unfailing kind to him, and the crowds help, like they always do—Johnny throws himself back into providing good service, and that gives him fuel to beat back the self-doubt and reassemble the burning wreckage of his confidence. There’s a guy that smiles at him one night, and his face is beautifully easy to read, his hair light and well-kept, but Johnny can’t find it within him, yet, to smile back. His heart flinches from the idea of being seen. 

Winter fully grips the city of Port Ellis, and its millions of inhabitants adjust, as they must. Out come the nano-puffs and the personal heaters, spewing warm air and blinking red. Snow piles up in the streets, and Johnny listens to the clank and clatter of the servos as they de-ice in the early hours of the morning, preparing for rush hour. 

He goes back home to Westlock for a little while when things have mostly scabbed over. His mother only asks about Jaehyun once, and then warns off the rest of his family when Johnny tells her it’s over. They enjoy Eylodian Independence day as November stretches to a close, and Johnny leaves Westlock feeling a lot better than he did when he left, full of his parents’ cooking and soaked in the love and attention from his family. 

“You’ve got color in your cheeks,” Doyoung remarks when Johnny comes into work next day. “Was it a good trip?” 

“It was exactly what I needed,” Johnny says, smiling and tying his apron around his waist. “My sister says hi, by the way. She still thinks you’re way cooler than me.” 

“It’s because I never fall for her traps,” Doyoung says. “You walk right into every single insult she sets up.” 

Johnny shrugs. “I mean, they’re pretty funny. And it’s easier, because then we don’t fight.” 

“Yeah, but you could at least _defend_ yourself,” Doyoung says, rolling his eyes. “It makes me sad when I have to pick on you. It’s like kicking a puppy.” 

“Yeah, my sister doesn’t care about that,” Johnny says, waving to a couple customers as they walk in. “Hey, guys! Grab any table you’d like and I’ll be right over.” 

“Hey, Johnny, how’s it going?” one of them calls—the blonde man from a little while ago. He’s wearing a uniform that marks him as an entry-reentry agent, responsible for keeping track of who’s coming in and out of the airspace by the port. They get some government types through here, but not many—most of them can’t stand the “riffraff”, as they put it, so there are only a select few. 

“I didn’t catch your name,” Johnny says when he heads over to take their drink orders. 

“Taeil,” he says. “I’m pretty new around here, actually.” 

“Oh, really?” Johnny asks. “Where from?” 

“Cadesden,” Taeil says. “Three hours west of here by air-rail. It’s pretty small, and they shut down our port and transferred me here.” 

“I’m originally from Westlock,” Johnny says. “Cadesden was the next town over.” 

Taeil’s face lights up. “You’re from west Eylo? You’re the first I’ve met. That’s pretty cool.” 

“Let me grab drink orders,” Johnny says, laughing, and Taeil’s cheeks flush. “But I’ll be around all night.” 

“Told you he was friendly,” Johnny hears one of Taeil’s coworkers say as he walks away. “Everybody around here loves that guy.” 

“I can see why,” Taeil replies, and Johnny feels something very small and timid flutter hopefully in his chest. 

Taeil sticks around for a little bit, chatting with Johnny in between busy periods. He’s friendly, funny, and nice to talk to. Companionable. Johnny doesn’t lose track of him like he did with Jaehyun, and there’s none of the dramatic gravitas in the way Taeil looks at him—his face is wide open, though he smiles less. 

“Can I give you my number?” Taeil asks on his way out. “Just as a friends thing for now, if you want. But I’d like to see you again, if that’s okay.” 

Johnny’s not sure what the rule about break-ups—if he can even call Jaehyun’s disappearance a break-up—but he can’t find a reason to say no. It still hurts, of course, and he suspects it will for a little while yet, but with Taeil, he doesn’t focus on it. The heartbreak fades into the background. Maybe, in time, this could be something _good._ Something solid. 

“Sure,” he says, and Taeil pulls out his handscreen and shares his contact. 

“Thanks for the drink,” Taeil says. “And for the conversation.” 

“Enjoy the rest of your night,” Johnny says, and Taeil offers him a small smile before following his friends back out into the winter night. 

Doyoung sidles up to him, holding an empty glass and wearing an encouraging smile. “See, there you go,” he says, nudging Johnny. “Look at that. You’re gonna be okay.” 

Johnny releases a massive breath, something coming loose in his chest, a tiny fragment of weight slipping from his shoulders. “I’m gonna be okay,” he says, and for the first time in a while, he starts to believe it. 

* * *

It’s nearly two in the morning by the time he gets back to his apartment, balancing leftovers from the kitchen in one hand while he hastily types in the code to the door, kicking it open and slipping inside. He nearly trips on a pair of shoes by the door, and kicks those out of the way too, waving an elbow in front of the sensor to turn the lights on. He’s just dumped his stuff on the kitchen counters and is debating on sending Taeil a message when there’s a small knock at his door, so quiet he thinks he imagines it until it sounds again. 

He checks the time again. 1:54. His neighbors should be asleep, and he hasn’t ordered anything—and besides, most places are closed by now, especially on a Wednesday. He idly taps the screen next to the door, prepared to turn away a confused deliveryman or maybe one of his friends, drunk.

The last person Johnny expects at _all_ is Jaehyun, covered in blood, head hanging forward. 

Every forward step he’d made in the last month suddenly becomes insignificant in the wave of emotion that slams into him—worry, confusion, hurt, and anger, all at once, drowning everything out except the rush of blood in his ears.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks through the intercom, and watches Jaehyun flinch, his head lifting. One of his eyes is black, and his bottom lip is split. Dried blood has crusted along his hairline, around his nose, and from a nasty cut on his forehead. There is no light in his eyes, none of the warmth that had been creeping back into him just before he’d left. 

Jaehyun, it seems, has also been undone. 

“I’ll leave if you tell me to,” Jaehyun whispers, his voice scratchy through the intercom. 

Johnny struggles to stay angry, but the force of his concern is powered by a heart that still cares deeply about the man on the other side of his door. A man who looks like he’s been through hell, and is now on the run from it. 

He can’t turn Jaehyun away. 

_And maybe this is your chance,_ another part of him whispers. _Maybe this is where it all makes sense._

The pieces of his battered heart protest. _He left twice. Why does he get to just walk back in every time?_

_Because he needs me,_ Johnny realizes, looking at Jaehyun’s bloody face and hands. _He still needs me._

It’s terrible reasoning, he knows, and he’s probably making a massive mistake. 

“If I let you in,” Johnny says, his voice wavering against his own will, “then you tell me the whole truth, okay?” 

Jaehyun leans back and casts a look down the hallway on either side of him before he answers. “Okay,” he agrees.

Johnny opens the door, and then Jaehyun is back in his apartment, back in his life, and the part of Johnny that wants to love him also wants to forgive him. 

Jaehyun sways on his feet, and Johnny reaches out before he can think, catching Jaehyun around the shoulders. He smells like smoke and metal, and every part of him is dirty or bloody. His eyes are glazed and his face under all the injuries is pale—he’s lost a lot of blood. 

“We have to get you patched up, first,” Johnny says as Jaehyun’s head lolls on his shoulder. “I’m not gonna have you die on me.” 

“Good plan,” Jaehyun says. 

Johnny starts half-carrying, half-dragging Jaehyun in the direction of the bathroom. “I’m still pissed, by the way.”

“I know,” Jaehyun murmurs. His eyelids flicker, and more dark blood spills slowly from under his hairline. 

“I feel like we should go to the clinic,” Johnny says doubtfully, easing Jaehyun onto the lip of the bathtub. “You look like hell.” 

“No clinic,” Jaehyun says weakly. One of his fingers is bent funny. Johnny swallows down his squeamishness and hopes that it’s not broken. “They’ll find me.” 

“Who will?” Johnny asks, carefully lifting Jaehyun’s hair away from his forehead. The cut there isn’t deep, but it’s still bleeding. 

Jaehyun lets out a shuddery breath. “My…coworkers. Or my ex-coworkers, I guess.” 

“Jaehyun,” Johnny says, pulling back. Jaehyun looks up at him, his eyes dark and glassy. “You promised to tell me the truth.” 

“I know,” Jaehyun whispers. “It’s not a good truth.” 

“You left,” Johnny says. “And now I deserve an explanation.” He rummages in the cabinet behind him for his first aid kit, pulling out med-spray, bandages, and Quik Skin. 

He gets to work on Jaehyun’s face and head first, cleaning off the blood while Jaehyun collects his thoughts. 

“I don’t know where to begin,” he says, voice hoarse. “You’re going to hate me.” 

Johnny laughs, a little bitter. “Jaehyun, you left twice, broke my heart, and showed up on my doorstep covered in blood, and I still don’t hate you.” 

“I,” Jaehyun starts, wincing as Johnny puts med-spray on the cut on his forehead, followed by a gauze pad. “I’m paid to hurt people.” 

Johnny tries his best not to react, keeping his hands steady. “Like a mercenary?” 

“Exactly like that,” Jaehyun says. “They—they’re the ones who took me in when I was a kid. Raised me. I owed them life.” 

“I didn’t think mercenaries were still a thing,” Johnny says. “I thought they were hunted down by the government ages ago.” 

“They like to say that,” Jaehyun says. “But the Guild has always looked legal enough from the outside. And they’re good at staying hidden.” 

“The Guild?” 

Jaehyun sticks out his ankle, revealing the black tattoo. “A group of mercenaries. Meridia and Kelson from the club, remember them?” 

Johnny gives Jaehyun a wry smile. “It’s a little hard to forget, Jae.” 

“Huh, yeah,” Jaehyun says, shaking his head. “They work there, too. I wasn’t—I stopped being careful, and they tracked me down.” 

Johnny tugs Jaehyun’s jacket off his shoulders, and helps him shimmy out of his bulky sweatshirt. Underneath, he’s wearing a thin, flexible vest—a shock-proof one, the sort that the troopers wear—and the harness, with its two guns and singular knife. 

“Why were you even here in the first place?” 

Jaehyun heaves a massive sigh. “I had a target here all the way back in September. But then I—well, you know the rest. I tried to run, but they have me tied so tightly.” He flicks his eyes up to Johnny. “It was stupid of me to try to stay.” 

Johnny doesn’t know what to say to that. Everything is making sense, now, but it hurts a hell of a lot more than he thought it would. 

“So you’re a gun-for-hire,” Johnny says, “through this Guild.” 

“Yes,” Jaehyun says steadily. He’s looking at Johnny, but Johnny can’t bring himself to meet Jaehyun’s gaze. 

It’s really not what he expected. He knew it was violent, dangerous, and illegal, but not—not this. Bounty hunters chase people of all sorts through galaxies and smugglers bring drugs in and out of atmospheres. Mobsters threaten each other with zap-guns and claim cities. Nobody’s hands are clean. Johnny knows this. 

But Jaehyun, sitting on the edge of the bathtub with his palms bloody, has killed people. He has looked them in the eyes with that awful neutral expression, the unreadable one, the cold one, and he has pulled the trigger. 

_That_ is the truth. Not that he’s a mercenary. Not that he’s being chased. But that he’s taken somebody’s life, blood for money, and walked away. 

“I’ve learned to live with myself,” Jaehyun says, reading Johnny’s face. His expression is wary, even as Johnny dutifully scrubs the blood from his arms and tries to figure out a way around yelling. “That’s why I can’t sleep for very long.” 

“How long?” Johnny asks eventually. “How long were you with them?” 

“Seven years,” Jaehyun says. “Since I was sixteen. They put the ink on me, and I signed my life away.” 

“How many?” 

“I don’t remember.” The sadness is back, the heaviness that Johnny saw on him in the storage room. Jaehyun lives with his choices, but they’re not light. 

Johnny stops with his hands in Jaehyun’s. They’re nearly the same size, and they’re clean, now, ready to be patched up. “You’re beating back your monsters with nothing but a stick,” he says. 

“The ones out here are worse than the ones in my head,” Jaehyun says. Johnny sprays some Quik Skin across a particularly nasty gash on his forearm, soon to be another scar amongst a collection of many scars. Seven years of history, of pain, of violence. “They’ve got mercs that can track people through an entire universe. They’ll get me eventually.” 

“That’s impossible,” Johnny says, stunned by the quiet acceptance in his voice. “That technology doesn’t exist.” 

Jaehyun shudders. “It does in the Guild. It’s limited tech, but the mercs who use it are pretty much unstoppable. They’ve never failed, not once.” He looks down at Johnny, and the sadness is back—only now, Johnny knows what it means. 

“No,” Johnny says furiously, sitting back on his heels. “You don’t get to just _leave_. I’m still pissed, remember? And you’ve just told me you kill people for a living. Now you tell me you’re being _chased_ by _unstoppable assassins?_ ” 

“They’ll be here in a little while, I’m guessing,” Jaehyun says. “I’ll have to go by morning.” 

“Why can’t you just kill them?” Johnny says, his voice cracking. Panic overtakes anger, and anger burns away panic. 

“They’re the best of the best,” Jaehyun says simply. “And they’ll have backup—other people from the Guild.” 

“Like Meridia?” 

Jaehyun’s mouth twists at the mention of her name. “Like Meridia,” he says. “She’s the one who ratted me out. I thought—she works below me, so I thought I could keep her in line.” 

“This is fucked up,” Johnny says, frowning deeply. “This is so, so, so fucked-up. I can’t believe you came back.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jaehyun says, and Johnny can hear the exhaustion in each word, weighing him down. “It was selfish. I just—you’re the only person who’s ever looked at me like that.” 

“Like what?” Johnny asks. 

Jaehyun touches Johnny’s cheek, so tenderly the broken thing in Johnny’s chest shifts. He’s never been good at staying mad, or holding grudges. 

“Like you think I’m good,” he says. “Even now.” 

“What the hell,” Johnny breathes. He finally meets Jaehyun’s eyes, and it’s like his heart is breaking again. “Jaehyun, of _course_ I think you’re good. You wouldn’t—I don’t think you like hurting people.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Jaehyun says. “I did it anyway.” 

“But you’re trying,” Johnny reminds him. “You _are.”_

Jaehyun’s mouth curves, and it’s absurd—this whole situation is absurd. Johnny’s sort-of-ex-boyfriend who wasn’t even really his boyfriend has shown up at his front door with the truth: that he’s a mercenary, that he’s being tracked through the universe, and that he’s running away from it all. 

Jaehyun answers all the rest of his questions as Johnny fixes the last of his injuries. After so much avoidance, so much dancing around the truth, it is both freeing and painful to have everything out in the open. They’re still not touching, not yet—Johnny will need time to move past things, through things—but there’s warmth. A spark. 

And shadows, so many shadows. Jaehyun is here on stolen time, and they both know that. 

“What are you going to do now?” Johnny says. They’ve long since moved to the couch, and Jaehyun is wearing Johnny’s clothes. Johnny sees him in a strange, new light—something has lifted in his eyes, he realizes. 

“I’ll go soon,” Jaehyun says, tipping his head back against the couch and closing eyes. “I’ll go back to the Guild, probably, or they’ll kill me.” 

He says this last part so casually, even as Johnny’s stomach drops. 

“They’ll kill you?” 

Jaehyun shrugs, still casual. “I tried to leave, and when they said I couldn’t, I ran. That’s more than enough reason. They sent the trackers after me, Johnny. They’re coming, whether I like it or not.” 

“But—” 

“Johnny,” Jaehyun says, lifting his head and opening his eyes. The way he says Johnny’s name is so gentle, so tender, doing wonders for the bruises he’d left on Johnny’s heart. “I can’t stay.” 

Johnny sighs heavily. “I know.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jaehyun says yet again, his eyes closing once more. “It wasn’t fair to even try. But you made me want to stay, even in the beginning.” A long beat of silence. “That’s what I meant to say to you, before I left.” 

Johnny remembers. 

“I was going to ask you if you wanted to go get breakfast with me,” Johnny says softly. “In the morning, when we woke up.” 

Another long, staticky moment of silence. 

“Do you regret it?” 

Johnny is shaking his head before he can find the words. “No,” he says. “Not one bit.” He scoots a little closer to Jaehyun, who opens his eyes again. 

“Can I kiss you?” Johnny asks, because Jaehyun is still handsome even when he’s exhausted, and Johnny is just as in danger of falling in love with him as he was before. 

Jaehyun sits up. “I didn’t think—” 

“If you might die,” Johnny says dryly, “then it doesn’t really matter, does it?” 

Jaehyun gives him an affectionate look, and Johnny’s heart thrums painfully in his chest as he leans over to kiss Jaehyun gently on his split lip. 

Jaehyun takes a sharp breath through his nose, putting a hand on the side of Johnny’s neck and pulling him closer. Jaehyun’s tongue presses against the seam of Johnny’s lips, and he opens his mouth as Jaehyun slides into his lap. Jaehyun’s knee presses against his thigh as Johnny slides a hand up and under his borrowed shirt. 

The space between their chests heats. Jaehyun kisses Johnny slowly, desperately, teeth and tongues, his hands gripping Johnny’s shoulders tightly. 

“You’re shaking,” Johnny says, pulling away and winding an arm around his waist. 

“I don’t want to go,” Jaehyun replies, voice breaking, pressing his forehead to Johnny’s. “I never wanted to go.” 

“Then stay,” Johnny says. It’s a cold echo of that last night they had together, when Jaehyun had hovered over him and lied one last time. 

Jaehyun squeezes his eyes shut, and Johnny cups his face and kisses him again, once on his split lip and another time on the bruise by the corner of his mouth, on the cut on his cheek, the welt on his neck. Over the scar on his collarbone, where someone had tried to kill him. 

When they part again, Jaehyun’s lashes are wet, and his hands are trembling as he runs them through Johnny’s hair. Once again, Johnny notices how tired he looks, how beat-down and bruised. 

If they had the time, Johnny would’ve forgiven him. If they had the time, Johnny would’ve loved him properly, all the way through, through all the blood and all the weight and all the nightmares. They would both learn to live with it, and live through it. Jaehyun would go work somewhere with lots of people and if they had the time, Johnny would say _I love you, Jaehyun._

But they only have these few minutes—these few stolen minutes—before the bloodbath begins. And so Johnny presses his fingers to the scars on Jaehyun’s body until Jaehyun falls asleep on the couch.

Night is preparing its departure when Johnny lifts his head from Jaehyun’s chest, wide-awake. The bandages on Jaehyun’s arm are starting to soak through with med-spray, and the first aid kit is empty when Johnny gets up to check it. There’s an unfamiliar peace to Jaehyun’s face that convinces Johnny to let him sleep, and he grabs his coat and handscreen. The convenience store across the street is open 24/7, he knows, and it’s so close the winter chill won’t even have time to creep through his jacket. 

The street is empty, void of both people and cars, the sign from the convenience store bathing the pavement in a white glow. The doors slide open, and there’s a click behind him, a sound just familiar enough that he pauses. 

There’s a figure in a black jacket he recognizes—it’s Jaehyun’s exact one, down to the zipper on the front. They’re holding a pistol, leveled at his head, and their hand doesn’t shake. 

“Yoonoh Jung,” the figure says. “Now.” 

It’s not the name he knows Jaehyun by, but they can’t mean anyone else. Johnny curls his hands into fists, his nails biting into his palm. He thought they had more time. Jaehyun had said in the morning. 

His mind races, but there’s no way out of this. Nowhere that he could run or hide—no way to warn Jaehyun, or call for help. 

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Johnny says. 

The figure sighs. “Foolish.” 

Johnny takes one step in the opposite direction—one single step back towards Jaehyun, sleeping on the couch and dreaming about staying—before the laser-bolt hits him in his shoulder, the pain so searingly bright it knocks him to his knees. 

He doesn’t even get a glimpse of their face under their hood. It’s only their fist, and then darkness, finally, that snaps up around him. 

* * *

Consciousness is hard to hold onto, especially when the pain in his shoulder and the ache in his head tries to force his body back asleep. His vision swims, blurry and out-of-focus. There are five people in Jaehyun’s jacket, standing near him, their faces entirely in shadow. There’s a dim light—dawn, just visible through a tiny window way above him. 

He has no idea where he is. His wrists are fastened to the back of a cold, hard metal chair, and that—besides the five other people—is the only thing in the room. He can remember the convenience store, the figure in a coat just like Jaehyun’s...and being shot. 

_Jaehyun,_ he thinks, desperate, struggling through the hazy fog over his brain. _Is Jaehyun here?_

“Wake him up.” 

Someone slaps him so hard he feels something in jaw crack, his head snapping to the side. His ears ring faintly, and the wound in his shoulder pulls uncomfortably. Blood—from his shoulder, his mouth, his nose, he doesn’t know—drips onto the top of his shoes. He’s still wearing his sweatpants, the one he’d left the house in. 

“Johnny Seo,” the same voice says. Surprise jolts through Johnny, but he keeps his eyes fixed on his feet. “We’ve been waiting for you.” 

“If this is about the Andromeda,” Johnny croaks, finally lifting his head, “then I’ll have to ask you to wait—” 

He’s hit again, his vision blinking out as the pain crescendos. “Fuck,” he spits. 

“Tell us where Yoonoh Jung is,” the same person demands, “and we’ll let you go.” 

“I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about,” Johnny says, jutting his chin out. 

_They haven’t found him,_ he thinks at the same time. _They haven’t found him. He got out._

“We know he was in your apartment,” the lead Guild member continues. His coat is slightly fancier than the rest, and everyone else seems to be deferring to him. Probably the boss. “His blood was everywhere. No use lying about that.” 

“I don’t know _who you’re talking about_ ,” Johnny repeats. 

The Guild boss laughs, a sound that makes Johnny feel like his blood is freezing over. “Then let me change the question: where has _Jaehyun_ gone?” 

“I don’t know,” Johnny says again, which is true enough. He hopes Jaehyun has started running far from this planet—though in his gut, he knows that’s probably not true. Jaehyun’s an idiot, and he broke Johnny’s heart, but he’s not _selfish._

He thinks about his handscreen. He can’t tell if it’s in his pocket or not, because his hands are trapped. But if Jaehyun can get help, and get here, then maybe—

The fragile hope is crushed under a fresh wave of pain as the person interrogating him gestures, and the hooded figure closest to him reaches over and digs their thumb into the wound on his shoulder. 

Johnny yelps before he can help it, and the interrogator finally drops their hood. It’s a man, grizzled and mean-looking, a long white scar bisecting a synthetic eye, its strange liquid iris fixing on Johnny’s face. 

There is nothing in that eye. There is nothing in either of those eyes. Just the cool flame of cruelty, an iciness that Johnny had never once seen in Jaehyun. 

“How about this,” the man says. “You tell us where he is, and we’ll call off the trackers.” He nods at two figures Johnny hadn’t noticed before, wearing sleek cloak-like jackets. One of them is flipping a silver switchblade, out-in, out-in. His fear spikes, but he swallows it down just as fast, focusing back on the cruel man. 

“Go to hell,” he says. 

He expects the blow, but it nearly knocks him out. He can’t physically take much more of this, his mind already pushed to the limit, strained by fear, sick with worry, and racked by pain. 

“That boy is a coward,” the cold man says. “He ran.” 

“He ran because he wanted to stay,” Johnny snaps. “That’s a hell of a lot braver than whatever the fuck you’ve taught him.” 

The figure who’s been hitting him throws off their hood, and Johnny recognizes the woman from the club, surprise barely registering through the pain. Meridia. Which means her giant, silent partner is probably that guy over there, hooded but taller than the rest. 

“I told you this was a waste of time,” she says. “We should go back to his apartment. Yoonoh is bound to turn up there at some point.” 

“Fuck you,” Johnny tells her with as much derision as he can muster. She sneers at him. 

“The power of love isn’t going to save you, Johnny Seo,” she says. “He’s not gonna come, and we’re going to catch him.” 

The cruel man looks at Johnny like he’s debating this. “I suppose it would be better,” he says. “Alright. Take the boy, and dispose of him somewhere. I don’t want the enforcers sniffing around.” 

Meridia is two feet away from him, her eyes narrowed and glittering with cruel satisfaction when there are footsteps from behind them. 

“Get the _fuck_ away from him,” a new voice says, and all five mercenaries whip around at the same time, pulling their weapons out as one as Jaehyun— _Jaehyun—_ steps out of the shadows, wearing Johnny’s t-shirt, bandaged up to his arms, fire in his eyes, his hands steady on his pistol.

“Well,” the man with the scar says. “Look at how well this worked out, hm? Jaehyun, put the gun down and come with us.” 

“No,” Jaehyun snaps, the corded muscles in his forearms pulling taught as he turns the pistol on the man with the scar. “And don’t fucking call me that, Horowitz. You don’t get to call me that.” 

Meridia scoffs. “You’ll never be one of them,” she says. “All that blood on your hands, Yoonoh? Seven years of work experience _killing people?_ ” 

“Shut up,” Johnny says from behind her, straining against his bonds, every part of him pulling towards Jaehyun desperately. “Don’t talk to him like that.” 

Meridia ignores him. Jaehyun’s face has turned sheet white. Johnny pulls harder, but only succeeds in hurting his wrists more. 

“Yoonoh,” Horowitz, the man with the scar, says coldly. “You’re outnumbered. Come with us. We’ll let your boyfriend go.” 

Jaehyun looks past him at Johnny, his expression heartbroken and terrified. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says. 

Johnny’s heart plummets. “Jaehyun, _no,_ you can’t, they’re going to kill you—” 

“ _Jaehyun_ ,” Meridia mocks, sneering. “Why don’t we get to say it? Because we don’t _love_ you like your bartender does? Because we _know_ who you are?” 

Jaehyun doesn’t respond. He’s still looking at Johnny, just at Johnny. 

The metal chair rattles as Johnny scoots forward. “Jaehyun, _please,_ ” he shouts. “Don’t do this—” 

“Come along now, Yoonoh,” Horowitz says. “That’s enough.” 

Jaehyun lowers his weapon, and Johnny shouts his name, desperate. “Yeah,” he says. “It is.” 

There’s a clank, a clatter, and the room bursts into light as someone yanks open a door to reveal— _everyone._ Mobsters, interstellar factions, shipping and salvage people. The women with the thorium swords. Taeil from the ports with all his friends. Doyoung. Kiko. Ten in his bounty hunter gear. Every single person who, inside the walls of Andromeda, promised to get along. 

All of them, standing there in the light of dawn, here to set Johnny free. 

“I think you’re a little outnumbered,” Jaehyun says, and lunges at Horowitz. 

The room erupts into chaos. Mercenaries pour from upper levels, and the entirety of the Andromeda bar swarm the room. 

“Johnny! Johnny!” Doyoung shouts, elbowing a mercenary in the face. Behind him, Kiko’s girlfriend shoots them in the knee. Kiko yelps and jumps to the side, and the three of them push through to him. 

“Oh my god,” Johnny says, vision swimming, his brain desperately trying to catch up. There’s so much noise, and so many faces he knows, and his whole body hurts _so much_. “Oh my god. How—how? How are you guys here?” 

Kiko’s girlfriend makes quick work of his bindings, but Johnny doesn’t have the strength to stand. He watches Jaemin swing a silvery rod of sorts at one of tracking mercenaries, and the sound of Donghyuck’s laughter carries through the room, feeling impossibly fond and concerned all at once. And confused. Very, very confused. 

“Jaehyun,” Kiko says, beaming. “He burst into the Andromeda a little while ago, yelling that you were in trouble, and that anybody that cared about you should come help him.” 

“No way,” Johnny says, but Doyoung is wearing a smug expression, his arms crossed. “ _Yes_ way? That’s the truth? He did that?” 

“It’ll be better if he tells you himself,” Doyoung says, “but yeah, that’s the gist of it.” 

Johnny turns to look at Jaehyun, who is still fighting Horowitz, trading blow for blow. There’s a furious, intense look on his face, and Johnny gets the sense that he’s fighting for more than just his life. 

“It’s over,” Jaehyun shouts at him. “It’s _over,_ Horowitz. Let me go.” 

“You’re a coward,” Horowitz spits. Jaehyun blocks a punch, but Horowitz swings with his other hand, clipping Jaehyun in the side of the face, snapping his head to the side. “You want to run? Fine. But nobody will want a man like you. Mercenaries don’t belong in the real world, Yoonoh.” 

“I don’t _want_ to be a mercenary,” Jaehyun says, already back in the fight. His chest is heaving, and he looks exhausted. Johnny takes a step forward, even though there’s nothing he can do. This is Jaehyun’s fight. “Not anymore.” 

“You don’t just stop,” the man says. “You belong to us. You will _always_ belong to us. You will always have to go.” 

Jaehyun—tired, wearing Johnny’s t-shirt, and wrapped in bandages, looks over and meets Johnny’s eyes. “I’m going to try.” 

Horowitz lunges, but Jaehyun, furious, exhausted, and dying to _stay_ , is faster. He is exactly what Jaemin said he was—efficient and brutal. All of his strength goes into that one blow, and it lands. 

The man with the scar crumples at his feet. 

Johnny struggles to stand, his whole body screaming in pain, as Jaehyun drops his gun and runs towards Johnny, dodging past the last of the fights. The Andromeda people outnumber the mercenaries two-to-one, and everything starts to wind down as Jaehyun flings his arms around Johnny. The wound in his shoulder smarts and his nose is bleeding everywhere, but Jaehyun smells and feels familiar in a way that makes Johnny feel like crying. 

“I got here as fast as I could,” Jaehyun mumbles, pulling Johnny closer. “I got as many people as I could.” 

“There’s so many,” Johnny marvels, pulling away and watching as Taeil helps a smuggler restrain a struggling mercenary. A Cenzari helps a Neolite to her feet. 

“As soon as I told them a group of galactic mercenaries had you, everyone wanted to help,” Jaehyun says. “Some of them had even figured it out.” 

“Jaemin’s terrible with secrets,” Johnny says. “Especially when he’s drunk.” He goes for a laugh and almost blacks out. Jaehyun catches him around the middle. 

“Now look who’s bleeding everywhere,” he teases, and Johnny laughs again, wincing. “I’ll take you to the clinic.” 

“What are we gonna do with them?” Johnny asks, nodding at all the fallen Guild members. 

“We could call the enforcers,” Jaehyun says, “but they’ll just be released anyway. We’ll just leave them.” 

“Johnny! You’re alright!” Jaemin shouts, running up to him. Donghyuck is half a step behind him, followed by Renjun and Hendery. 

“Holy shit, that was intense,” Donghyuck says. “That felt like a movie.” 

“You need to see a doctor,” Renjun comments. 

People are starting to notice Johnny, however, and soon he’s surrounded by faces he knows, some better than others. Everybody has something nice to say, and by the end of it, his head is spinning from the compliments and his vision is spotting with pain. 

“Thank you,” Johnny tells them, and means it so wholly it hurts a bit to say. “To everyone.” 

There are hands on his back, on his arms, on his cheek. He’s hugged, and his cheeks and forehead is kissed. 

“People love Johnny,” Kiko says when Doyoung comments how long it’s taking. “He’s got room in his heart for everyone.” 

“Even the mercenary,” Doyoung says. “You knows he’s _killed_ people, right, Johnny?” 

“Yeah,” Johnny says. “We’ll talk about it.” 

“And I’m technically an ex-mercenary,” Jaehyun says, smiling. His cheek dimples, and Johnny can’t help but smile back. 

Jaehyun helps Johnny out of the building, into the hazy blue dawn. His arm is warm and solid around Johnny’s waist. 

“Please tell me you’re gonna stay,” Johnny asks him. 

“You know, I think I’m gonna,” Jaehyun says. “I sort of just lost my job, and I have a lot of apologizing to do to this guy I like.” 

“What a strange story,” Johnny says, “and what an excuse to stay.” 

Jaehyun kisses his cheek, and Johnny leans his head against Jaehyun’s shoulder, thoughtful. “I still don’t know how you pulled this off, though. There were _so_ many.” 

“I cashed in a favor,” Jaehyun says, eyes twinkling with amusement. “Hold on, let me help you sit down. It’s sort of a good story.” 

* * *

_Approximately an hour ago_

Jaehyun Jung—once Yoonoh, and before that, just a number, a nameless kid amongst many nameless kids—wakes up alone on Johnny Seo’s couch. 

He’s on his feet before he can even process anything, taking the pain that echoes through every part of his body and tucking it away, compartmentalizing, because he’s alone on Johnny’s couch in the morning with the Guild tracking him. He’s exhausted 

He opens his handscreen to a text from Johnny, sent five minutes ago: _running across the street for bandages, don’t freak out if you wake up._

Jaehyun’s never been a particularly heavy sleeper, what with the dreams and all of that, the weight of everything that he’s worked so hard to balance threatening to all come undone if he lets his mind wander too far. Johnny helps, because he’s warm and safe and makes Jaehyun feel good, but Johnny’s not here right now. 

The Guild. _God,_ Jaehyun hopes it’s not them, but he’s got a sinking feeling in his stomach. They were all taught to be early for everything. The first merc to the scene is the first to pull the trigger is the first to get the money is the first to be promoted. He wouldn’t be surprised if they’re early now, too. 

He pulls all of his stuff together and heads down, pulling the hood up on his jacket. He’s got a single pistol with a single shot in it—the other one is empty, and the knife is broken. He’d sacrificed both fighting his way off of a planet in the Corops system, throwing the Guild off of his trail for just long enough to get back to Johnny and apologize. His body still aches from that fight, but that’s a different problem for a different time. 

The convenience store is empty, and the register is manned by a servo, which is entirely unhelpful in his search. He emerges back onto the sidewalk, shivering a little. It’s beginning to snow. 

“Fuck,” Jaehyun mutters to himself, zipping his jacket a little higher and clenching his jaw, trying to keep his emotions in check. Worry piles on panic which piles on frustration—at himself, mostly, for not predicting this would happen, and also for being _selfish_ enough to go back to Johnny. He’d brought him into this the second they’d made eye contact at the bar, whether Johnny had known it or not. 

_The bar._

It’s the only place he’s got left, a shot in the dark. 

It’s closed, of course, when he gets there, but before desolation can crash over him, there’s the sound of footsteps behind him. His hand flies to his pistol and he turns, whipping around to come face-to-face with Hisashi, the cook and owner of the bar. Jaehyun lowers the pistol quickly, embarrassed, and drops his hood.

“You,” Hisashi says, crossing his arms. He’s stocky, and mostly bald, but Jaehyun is still slightly wary of him. The general consensus at Andromeda is _mess with Hisashi, mess with everyone._ “The boyfriend.” 

“Um, that’s me, I guess,” Jaehyun replies unsurely. 

Hisashi looks entirely unimpressed by him. “You broke Johnny’s heart, you know that? He didn’t smile for an entire week. Not only was it the most goddamn depressing thing I’ve ever seen, but it was terrible for business. Everyone in there was sad because of him.” 

Jaehyun winces. That night had wrung him out in every single way possible. He should’ve killed Meridia, he knows. It’s what came back to bite him in the ass. As soon as she’d come to, she’d scampered back to Horowitz, the worst bastard of them all, and told on him. And then Horowitz had sent the trackers, and Jaehyun had spent the last couple weeks avoiding them, trying to shake them. 

“I’m so sorry,” Jaehyun says, and doesn’t think he’s ever been this sincere in his life. “I mean it. I’ll spend the rest of my time proving I mean it.” 

Hisashi still doesn’t look impressed, but he softens by a touch. “What do you want? Johnny isn’t here. It’s past five in the morning.” 

“I’m actually here for help,” Jaehyun says. He takes a big breath, battling back “Johnny’s been kidnapped.” 

“Okay,” Hisashi says after a moment. “Yeah, I’m gonna need the whole story.” 

* * *

Johnny looks at Jaehyun, bemused. “You saw _Hisashi?_ I’m surprised he didn’t shoot you on the spot.” 

“Me too,” Jaehyun says. “It came close with a couple of other people, though.” 

* * *

Like the Neolites, Donghyuck’s faction. They don’t like Jaehyun because he rescued Jaemin, and come in guns blazing until Hisashi gives them a look. And Doyoung, though he only tried to hit Jaehyun—which he deserved, if he’s being entirely honest. Slowly, the bar fills up, sleepy mafiosos rubbing their eyes and faction people swallowing caffeine pills. When they’ve got a big enough crowd, Hisashi finally raises a hand. The confused chattering dies down, though some people are still glaring at Jaehyun. 

“We have a problem,” Hisashi says. “Johnny’s in trouble. He’s been kidnapped.” 

There’s an immediate, collective reaction of outrage. Kiko bursts into tears, and Doyoung looks like he’s going to be sick. 

“What are we waiting for, then?” Jaemin shouts. “Let’s go get him!” Several cheers of support follow this statement, and Jaehyun allows himself to feel a tiny bit of hope. 

“We need his location,” Jaehyun says. “Does anyone have it?” 

There’s a mutter of dissent from the Neolites, clustered together at the back. “Why should we trust him?” 

“Yeah!” an Argonite chimes in. “Why’s he even involved?” 

Doyoung gives him a curious look. “Why _are_ you involved?” 

Jaehyun takes a deep breath, and Hisashi gives him a look. _More truth,_ he thinks to himself. _Why not. What the hell._

“Because it’s my guild,” Jaehyun says, bracing himself. “ _The_ Guild, actually. I’m a mercenary.” 

Shock, disbelief, scorn. Jaemin is shaking his head victoriously, like _I knew it._ The women with the thorium swords are entirely unsurprised. 

“Prove it,” the same Neolite says, and Jaehyun lifts his foot up, rolling up his pants so everyone can see the black tattoo. He doesn’t know how Johnny didn’t recognize it, but among the space pirates and the interstellar criminals, it’s well-known. The band of death, they called it, back in the day when the government was campaigning for the elimination of the merc guilds. It’s unremovable, a reminder of where he comes from. 

And where, hopefully, he’s going. Which is out of this, and hopefully back into bed with Johnny. Forever. 

There’s more murmuring. A few people are debating on leaving, but Doyoung stops them. 

“Hear him out,” Doyoung suggests to the crowd. “This isn’t about him, after all. It’s about Johnny. We’re all here for Johnny.” 

That much, Jaehyun can agree on. And it’s for Johnny once again that he tells the truth, in its entirety, about Meridia, about Horowitz, about how it’s most definitely a trap that they’re laying for him, one they won’t be able to stop from setting off. 

“The only way out is through,” Jaehyun finishes. He turns to Jungwoo, who’s been listening and nodding along, like this makes sense. “I’m cashing in my favor.” 

“This is something we can do,” Jungwoo says. “We all love Johnny.” He turns to his faction, who are all agreeing enthusiastically. “He’s the heart and soul of this place.” 

The Argonites are softening, and they agree next. It’s a domino effect from there, ending—begrudgingly—with the Neolites, thanks mostly to an aggressive amount of begging, threats and coercion from Donghyuck. 

“I have his location,” Doyoung says, holding up his handscreen. 

“Then,” Jaehyun says, looking at all of these people who love Johnny, standing in a place that Johnny loves, “let’s go get him.” 

* * *

“And that,” Jaehyun says, “is about it. Now we really should get you to the clinic.” 

Johnny, feeling dizzier now, agrees. “I can’t believe you brokered _peace_ between _enemy_ factions.” 

Jaehyun smirks at him and hauls him to his feet, wrapping an arm around his waist. “Weren’t _you_ the one that said no fighting inside the Andromeda?” 

“Yeah, but,” Johnny says, “they could’ve just...not come.” 

“No way,” Jaehyun scoffs. “They all loved you too much not to come.” 

Johnny shakes his head, but he feels like he’s swallowed the sun. Everything feels bright and _good_ , and Jaehyun is a reassuring, solid warmth by his side. 

“So what you’re saying,” Johnny says later, much later, after all has been said and done and nobody is in danger of bleeding out, “is that you’ll stay?” 

Jaehyun smiles at him again—a little battered, a little bruised, a little bloody, both cheeks dimpling in the way that makes the part of Johnny that wants to love him _sing._

“Yeah,” Jaehyun says, and maybe Johnny loves Jaehyun a little bit already. Maybe he’s loved him for a long time, and now he finally gets to _realize_ it. “I’m saying I’ll stay.” 

**Author's Note:**

> and with that, i am never, ever writing sci-fi ever again!!


End file.
